Alexander Andreyevich Baranov (1747–1819), sometimes spelled Aleksandr or Alexandr and Baranof, was born in 1747 in Kargopol, in St. Petersburg Governorate of the Russian Empire. Alexander ran away from home at the age of fifteen to Moscow, where he became a clerk before returning home. After marrying and the birth of a daughter, he left for Siberia. In Irkutsk, he became a trader and tax collector with his brother. He was then lured to Russian America, by Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov, and the growing Maritime Fur Trade there. He became the chief manager of the Russian-American Company, establishing and managing trading posts in the Kodiak Island region from 1790 onwards.