Twice more than a century apart, Russia reached towards Africa. One attempt began with a Tsar’s dream of sailing from the Baltic to India by way of Madagascar. The other took shape beneath a Russian flag, carrying Cossacks, monks, women, and children to Sagallo, an abandoned fort on the Gulf of Tadjoura, in what we now call Djibouti.
Both ventures abysmally ended in failure. The first attempt dissolved in rough seas long before it had crossed the northern waters of Europe and the other lasted only a few weeks before French guns opened fire on it. Between these two journeys lies a curious history of imperial ambition, secret instructions, imagined pirate kingdoms, exhausted treasuries, an adventurer’s vanity, and a fort briefly renamed “New Moscow.”
The Scramble for Africa is generally remembered as a Western European enterprise. Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Spain appear on the familiar colonial map, their borders drawn across the continent with the confidence of empires that believed distance could be conquered by flags and by force. Russia is usually absent in these milieu of stories and that absence encouraged a simple conclusion that Russia was just not a part of the greedy countries that tried to establish colonies in Africa. In reality, Russia reached for the continent twice but none of the attempts produced a lasting colony and neither was comparable to the sustained colonial force and impact the likes of Britain or France had. Yet, both ventures reveal something important about the nineteenth-century and its imperial escapades: the desire and effort to possess Africa was not limited to the powers that eventually succeeded. The map of colonial Africa records the empires that managed to establish themselves, but it says little about the powers that tried and failed to do the same. Russia’s African empire, for instance, did not fail because ambition was entirely absent. Rather, it failed because the ambition met distance, weather, weak finances, confused authority, international rivalry, and, in the later episode, French artillery.
Peter the Great and the Southern Horizon
The first Russian attempt started with Peter the Great, the tsar who sought to transform Russia from a largely continental power into a maritime one. Under his rule, Russia looked toward the sea with impatience. The Baltic, in particular, became central to his ambitions, drawing Russia into wars over access to the coast and the maritime routes beyond it. Shipyards expanded, naval institutions were reorganized, and foreign specialists were invited into Russian service. The tsar understood that much of the world’s wealth moved along the oceanic routes connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Indian Ocean therefore began to enter Russian calculations. Peter was not necessarily planning to conquer India itself. His government was more interested in reaching the commercial routes that led toward India and the wealth of the Mughal Empire. Madagascar, far off the southeastern coast of Africa, appeared to offer a possible stepping stone. A Russian presence there could provide a place to refit ships, establish relations with local rulers, and support voyages further east. However the voyage plan was built on information that was only partly reliable. In 1721, Peter reportedly learned about Madagascar through the Swedish admiral Daniel Wilster, who had served in the Russian navy. Wilster described the island as a place of wealth and liberty, even suggesting that a flourishing pirate republic existed there. Later accounts indicate that Wilster had not personally visited Madagascar and his knowledge came from maritime rumours and the exaggerated stories that circulated among sailors. But empires are often built, or nearly built, upon rumours. To Peter, Madagascar could be many things at once: a trading station, a naval base, an opening to India, and a way of inserting Russia into the oceanic commerce dominated by Britain, France, the Dutch Republic, and Portugal. To Peter, the island was less a destination and more of a door to a world of possibilities.
The Secret Expedition
In 1723, Peter ordered preparations for a secret expedition and the command went to Daniel Wilster. Two Dutch-built frigates were selected: the Amsterdam Galley and the De Cron de Livde. The instructions they received reflected the secrecy and uncertainty surrounding the plan. The ships were expected to travel from the Baltic, pass around the British Isles, enter the Atlantic, and make their way toward Madagascar without stopping at foreign ports. The goal was to negotiate with the island’s supposed pirate rulers, establish relations, and eventually continue toward India. For a nation that was just testing the maritime world, this plan was on the grand scale of imperial fantasy and the fragile practical foundation of a hurried naval experiment. You see, Madagascar was thousands of miles away and a voyage to its terrain required reliable ships, provisions, experienced crews, favourable weather, and a clear understanding of the political conditions waiting at the destination. Half of these were not even within Russia’s ambit of control.
At the end of 1723, the two frigates departed from Reval, the Baltic port now known as Tallinn. Almost immediately, the bad weather and headwinds began to contradict the plans drawn up in St Petersburg as one vessel developed a leak while the other proved unstable in heavy weather, forcing the ships to turn back to Reval before they had made any real progress toward Madagascar. The surviving archival records preserve Peter’s letter to the so-called “king of Madagascar,” along with the diplomatic accreditation issued to Admiral Wilster and the instructions and official documents prepared for the secret expedition. They also note that the ships were insufficiently prepared and had to return. The failure was humiliating, but Peter was not easily discouraged. Fresh preparations were ordered but a harsh reality surfaced — an empire’s plans need more than determination alone. Ships require money, and Russia’s treasury was not limitless. Naval expansion, war, administration, and domestic reform had already placed heavy demands on the state. Then the unexpected happened. In January 1725, Peter the Great died. With the tsar’s death, the Madagascar project lost its principal sponsor and the expedition receded into the background.
Madagascar in the Russian Imagination
The failed Madagascar expedition reveals something about the Russia Peter the Great was trying to build. Peter’s Russia was not yet a global maritime empire. It didn’t have the overseas infrastructure nor the naval experience of the Dutch, British, or Portuguese, but Peter was determined to change that. He wanted Russia to have a place in the world beyond its own borders, and Madagascar, however distant and imperfectly understood, appeared to offer one possible route there. The island was never reached, but the fact that Peter was willing to send Russian ships thousands of miles across unfamiliar waters says something about the scale of his ambitions.
But why Madagascar? Madagascar appeared attractive because it was distant from the main centres of European power. It seemed to offer space where a newcomer might establish itself without immediately confronting a major colonial administration. The supposed pirate republic added another layer of temptation. Pirates could be imagined as enemies, allies, or independent political actors who might be persuaded to serve Russian interests. The problem was that the island of rumour and the island of reality were not the same and more importantly, the European powers Russia sought to emulate achieved success by sheer persistence, rigorous planning and years of maritime experience, not with mere dreams.
European sailors had long circulated stories about Madagascar’s pirates, portraying them as a powerful and loosely organised maritime community. Later British exploration suggested that the reality was far less grand. They consisted of scattered settlements, had very limited resources, and were impoverished rather than being the unified pirate kingdom capable of becoming Russia’s overseas partner.
It would eventually become evident that Peter’s plan rested on a chain of uncertain assumptions: Madagascar would welcome Russia and its local rulers could be unified, the island could support a naval station, the route to India would be practical, the treasury could finance the operation and the ships could survive the voyage. Each assumption carried a risk of failure. Together, they made the expedition almost impossible and consequently, the Russian flag never reached Madagascar.
The Scramble for Africa
More than 150 years later, the political climate changed completely. By the late nineteenth century, other European powers were already claiming territory, signing treaties with local rulers, building forts, raising flags, and sending soldiers into the interior. The period which was later called ‘the Scramble for Africa,’ transformed the continent’s political map. Britain sought control over routes linking Egypt, East Africa, and southern Africa. France pursued an immense territorial belt across the Sahara and West Africa. Belgium established its brutal rule in the Congo. Germany entered the colonial race in East and Southwest Africa. Italy looked toward Eritrea, Somalia, and Ethiopia. Portugal defended its older claims in Angola and Mozambique.
Russia watched this expansion from outside the main colonial map, an expansion it had been forced to relegate to the realm of dreams. Its empire was vast, but its principal interests lay elsewhere: Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, the Ottoman frontier, and the Pacific. Russia possessed an enormous land empire but lacked the secure oceanic infrastructure required for a major African venture. It was powerful in some directions and poorly positioned in others. Nevertheless, Russian officials and adventurers continued to imagine connections with Africa, especially through the Red Sea and Ethiopia. Ethiopia held particular importance because of its Christian identity and its position near the routes leading from the Red Sea into the African interior. During this period, Nikolai Ashinov, an adventurer and self-styled “free Cossack appeared.
Nikolai Ashinov the Cossack Adventurer
Ashinov presented himself in St Petersburg as a man capable of expanding Russian influence abroad. He cultivated connections with officials and promoted schemes that linked colonization, religion, commerce, and geopolitical strategy. His proposals were attractive partly because they appeared to promise Russia an African foothold without demanding the immense resources of a formal imperial expedition. A settlement on the Red Sea could serve as a station for Russian ships, a gateway to Ethiopia, and a symbol of Russian presence in the Horn of Africa.
Ashinov also understood the power of spectacle. The language of Cossack settlement carried historical and patriotic associations. The presence of Orthodox monks suggested a religious mission. Ethiopia’s Christian traditions created the possibility of a spiritual alliance. The entire enterprise could be presented not as crude colonial conquest, but as a protective and civilizing connection between two Christian peoples. Yet, behind the religious language lay unmistakable geopolitical ambitions just like the Western world powers had.
The proposed settlement would give Russia a position near the Red Sea, close to routes connecting the Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean. It could also complicate the plans of France, Britain, and Italy, all of whom were competing for influence in the region. However, the Russian government did not fully authorise Ashinov’s venture as an official colonial project.
The Journey to Sagallo
In late 1888, Ashinov gathered between 150 to 200 people, including Cossacks, Orthodox monks, women, children, and other followers. They travelled aboard a chartered Austrian steamer and sailed toward the Gulf of Tadjoura. The composition of the expedition gave it the appearance of a migrating community rather than a conventional military force. It was part pilgrimage, part colonising venture, part diplomatic mission, and part personal adventure.
In January 1889, the group reached the coast of the Gulf of Tadjoura, today’s Djibouti. They settled at Sagallo, an abandoned Egyptian fort overlooking the Gulf. The fort stood within a region already connected to local political authorities and French expansion. Ashinov nevertheless treated the abandoned fort as though abandonment had erased previous claims.
He raised the Russian flag and established a small chapel. Then he announced that the settlement was Russian territory and gave it a new name: “New Moscow.” According to accounts of the episode, he claimed approximately fifty miles of coastline and a further hundred miles inland. The gesture was bold, almost theatrical. A decaying fort became a Russian colony through the raising of a flag and a declaration became, in Ashinov’s mind, a fact.
A Contested Region
As stated above, Sagallo lay within the sphere of French authority. By the time Ashinov reached the Gulf, France had already started consolidating its position in the region and in the territory that would become French Somaliland. The French considered the coastal region part of their protectorate and saw Ashinov’s settlement as an intrusion. This conflict was not simply between Russia and France. It also involved the local political landscape, including the Danakil communities and sultanates whose authority existed before European claims. European maps frequently reduced these complex relationships to the language of protectorates, leases, and imperial possession.
Ashinov’s arrival created an immediate problem for France. If the settlement were allowed to remain, Russia might establish a permanent position on the Red Sea. Even a small Russian community could become a diplomatic foothold, especially if it received naval protection or official recognition later. The French demanded that the Russians leave but Ashinov refused. The refusal may have rested on his belief that the Russian government would ultimately support him, or on his conviction that France would not risk an armed confrontation over a small, poorly supplied settlement. It was a dangerous miscalculation as France had more than diplomatic authority. It had warships.
So it was that on the 5th of February 1889, the French issued an ultimatum supported by a squadron consisting of a cruiser and three gunboats. The Russians were ordered to withdraw from Sagallo. When Ashinov refused to surrender, the French forced open fire. The settlement was shelled, and the makeshift colony collapsed almost immediately. Reports differ in the details of the casualties, but accounts commonly record that several settlers were killed, including one Cossack and civilians. The fort and its landings were damaged, and the expedition was brought to an abrupt end. The event had an almost absurd imbalance. On one side stood a Russian adventurer, a collection of settlers, a chapel, and a flag. On the other stood French naval power. The entire colonial dream had been reduced to a question of artillery range. The survivors were rounded up, taken away from the coast, and eventually sent back home and the settlement called New Moscow returned to French control.
Russia Disowns Ashinov
The most revealing part of the affair came after the attack. Rather than defend Ashinov as the representative of Russian imperial policy, the Russian government disowned him. St Petersburg had no desire for a diplomatic crisis with France over a venture it had never fully authorised. The government blamed Ashinov for the incident and hurried to repair relations with Paris. This response exposed the uncertain status of Ashinov’s expedition. Apparently, he had wanted the authority of the Russian Empire without submitting entirely to its control, acting as though patriotic language could substitute for official orders. Once the settlement was attacked, however, the state chose diplomacy over adventure and Ashinov was later exiled.
The Russian government’s embarrassment was understandable. The incident had produced deaths, threatened relations with France, and made Russia appear either reckless or incapable of controlling its own colonial agents. Unlike the later imperial expeditions of Britain or France, the Sagallo venture did not possess a clear chain of command linking the settlers to a coherent state policy. It was a rogue enterprise with imperial aspirations. Russia did try to establish a foothold, but Sagallo was not a fully backed Russian colony in the same sense as French Somaliland or Italian Eritrea.
Ethiopia in the Background
Ashinov’s project was connected to a larger Russian interest in Ethiopia. At the time, Ethiopia was one of the strongest independent powers in Africa. Its Christian tradition gave it symbolic importance in Russian religious and political circles, while its location made it strategically valuable. A Russian presence at Sagallo could have supported contact with Ethiopia and helped establish diplomatic, religious, or military relationships. Russia was not the only European power interested in Ethiopia, however. Italy had already established itself in Eritrea and was attempting to extend its influence into the Ethiopian interior as well. British and French interests also surrounded the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia stood at the centre of a contest in which European powers wanted territory, trade routes, and political leverage. The Ethiopian response to foreign pressure would become one of the defining stories of the Scramble for Africa.
Under Menelik II, Ethiopia acquired modern weapons, negotiated with European powers, expanded its central authority, and resisted the attempt to turn it into a protectorate. The conflict centred on the Treaty of Wuchale, signed in 1889, whose Italian and Amharic versions differed over whether Ethiopia was required or merely permitted to use Italy in its foreign relations. The Italian interpretation implied a protectorate; Menelik rejected that interpretation and later repudiated the treaty. In this tense setting, Russia’s interest in Ethiopia was more than religious sentiment. It was part of the broader diplomatic struggle surrounding the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. Yet, Russia’s connection with Ethiopia remained limited. It did not establish a lasting colony, and Ashinov’s defeat made clear how little room Russia possessed for improvised intervention.
