The US citizen decided to go out in the sea in his small boat. (Representational Image)
Russia on Friday said it found a US citizen on the shores of its remote far eastern Chukotka region after he set sail from Alaska in a small boat.
Local media in the Chukotka region, separated from Alaska by the Bering Sea, said border guards had stopped an unidentified American in the coastal village of Lavrentiya.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova then identified the man as a 46-year-old American from Anchorage in Alaska.
"His name is John Martin William III, he has been taken to the village of Lavrentiya," she said at a press briefing Friday.
"It turns out he was sailing on the Yukon River in Alaska in his personal one-man boat," she said.
"Around two weeks ago he decided to go out into the open sea and, because of difficult meteorological conditions and a lack of a navigation system, he spent a few days in the open sea and that's how he ended up on Russian soil."
Zakharova said the US Consulate in the far eastern city of Vladivostok has been informed and that local authorities plan to take the man to Anadyr, Chukotka's capital that is also Russia's easternmost town.
The American is in a "satisfactory condition," she said.
"Everything is fine with him and will be even better."
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