Balashov is a town in Saratov Oblast, Russia, located on the Khopyor River. It was known as the village of Balashovo since the end of the 18th century. In 1780, it was granted town status and became known as Balashov. It is likely that the original Russian Balashov who came to Alaska was from this location.
Vasilii Ksenofon’t’ev Balashev or Balyshev, born about 1778 in the Tobol’sh Province of western Siberia, by the Irtysh River, was a meshchanin (lower middle class) employee in the Russian American Company. He married an Alaskan native or Creole woman and had at least two children, Akulina (1820-1841) and Ioann Ivan (1817-1861). Ivan married Nakaa Elena (1819-1860) who was a Kenaika (tanaina Indian from Nikolaevsk Redoubt. They had five known children and both died in Kenai.
Ivan’s son, Zakharii Balashoff and his wife Mariia lived in Seldovia and the two Balashoff families that are listed in Seldovia in the 1900 census are from their family. Known children were Mikhail/Mikkel, b. 1875, Ioann (1877-1879), Deonisii (b. 1880), Semion (1883-1884), Elisaveta (married Adam Bloch) and Timofei (1889-1925)
There are 8 individuals interred in the Seldovia City Cemetery with the Balashof surname. Three of them are infants. Adam Bloch’s 2nd wife Elizabeth Balashoff Bloch Markle is buried in the Seldovia Hill Cemetery in the town. See more information about her in the Bloch Family section.
Mikkel Balashoff, Sr., son of Zakharii and Mariia