European Russians did not even sight Alaska until 1648 at the earliest, during the voyage of Semyon Dezhnyov, the first European to sail through the Bering Strait. Being either illiterate or semi-literate, he was unable to understand the significance of what he had done, and his reports were ignored by Moscow. It was not until Vitus Bering's (a Dane in the employ of Russia) 1741 expedition that Alaska was actually confirmed to be close to Asia (a previous voyage by Bering through the Bering Strait in 1728 had missed Alaska thanks to poor weather conditions preventing it from being sighted). Thanks to the great distances from European Russia no permanent settlements were made until the establishment of Three Saints Bay (near present-day Kodiak) in 1784.

Russia's current immense size is a relatively recent development in the country's history. At the time of Columbus' landing in 1492, the Grand Duchy of Moscow (the predecessor of the Tsardom of Russia) did not extend beyond the Ural Mountains. The expansion into Siberia was a very gradual process of conquest and settlement, and Russia did not reach to the Pacific ocean until the mid-17th century.

That is not to say that there were no travelers to North America from Siberia by non-Russians, however. It is commonly accepted among archaeologists that all natives of North and South America are descended from people that crossed the Bering Strait, either across a land bridge or by small seacraft.