The can see Russia from their house

Now that Putin has successfully annexed Crimea, another group of disgruntled Russian descendants is hoping to return to the Kremlin’s dominion. As of Monday morning, a petition entitled “Alaska Back to Russia” has garnered more than 17,000 signatures since it launched Friday.

An unnamed Anchorage resident created the WhiteHouse.gov appeal, citing the state’s historic and ancestral ties to the world’s largest country. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to determine exactly how many of the signatures are authentic—as opposed to being Putin-employed bots or a ploy to exile Sarah Palin—but the surrounding chatter on Twitter confirms that at least some Russian-Americans are dead serious about secession.