An ordinary offshore platform was declared the sovereign state of Sealand in 1966
According to Vremya Novostei, the Spanish real estate agency Inmo-Naranja recently announced the following: Prince Michael I, constitutional monarch of the independent Principality of Sealand, located off the coast of Great Britain in the English Channel, intends to put his domain up for auction due to the global crisis. To confirm that the announcement of the sale of the principality is no joke, we can provide the exact coordinates of this 'property': 51°53'40"N, 1°28'57"E. It is here that the offshore platform stands, which in 1966 was declared the sovereign state of Sealand (literally 'Sea Land') by retired British Army Major Paddy Roy Bates, who proclaimed himself its Prince Roy I.
And this is again no joke. Due to 'loopholes' in international law, this structure can indeed be considered the territory of an independent state. The offshore platform, which was built by the British Royal Navy in 1942 (then this anti-aircraft fort was called Roughs Tower) and which was 'occupied' by Mr. Bates many years later, is located in neutral waters. In the 1950s, Roughs Tower was abandoned and stricken from the lists of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's Admiralty. Therefore, the lawyers of His Majesty Prince Roy I were entitled to claim that the landing on the iron 'island' could be called colonization of no man's land.
The appearance on the world map of yet another unrecognized state is explained not only by Prince Roy's vanity, but also by more prosaic reasons: in the mid-60s, avid radio amateur Bates was looking for a place to base his pirate radio station with the 'modest' name 'Britain's Best Music Radio'. Since the authorities of the United Kingdom were not thrilled with Roy's pirate activities, he, together with his wife Joan and son Michael, established his own monarchy on Sealand. Soon the extravagant family forgot about the radio station and began seriously playing at 'their own country': the state issued its own postage stamps, minted coins with the prince's profile, and issued passports, through which the Bates family gained like-minded people and fellow citizens.
The history of Sealand in terms of eventfulness can outdo many a 'serious' state. In 1968, shortly after its founding, the principality nearly suffered aggression from neighboring Great Britain: British coast guard boats approached the platform, the royal family of Sealand responded with warning shots in the air, and thus annexation was avoided. And ten years later, a real coup d'état took place on Sealand. The Prime Minister of the principality, Count Alexander Gottfried Achenbach, taking advantage of the fact that Prince Roy was away, landed on the island with a group of his friends, usurped power, and locked the young crown prince Michael in one of the holds of the 'island', after which he took the legitimate heir to the throne to the Netherlands. Michael managed to escape and meet with his father, after which a support group of loyal subjects of Roy I overthrew the impostor and took him prisoner.
After this regrettable incident, the authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany, of which Count Achenbach was a citizen, became seriously interested in Sealand. When the British Foreign Office refused to extricate the former prime minister of Sealand (thus indirectly confirming that Britain does not have sovereignty over the principality), German diplomats had to negotiate directly with Prince Roy. Let us add that the ex-premier, stripped of Sealand citizenship and his noble title, formed his own 'government in exile'.
In the mid-1990s, Sealand was mentioned in connection with a far more serious incident – Interpol uncovered a criminal group that was profitably trading in fake passports of the unrecognized principality. One such passport, it turned out, was acquired by Andrew Cunanan, the murderer of fashion designer Gianni Versace.
In the early 2000s, the princely Bates family apparently remembered how it all began. True, now the World Wide Web had replaced pirate radio. Sealand announced that it would host on its territory servers of a company that wanted to create an internet hosting independent of British jurisdiction. In 2006, the principality suffered the first natural disaster in its history – a fire. Apparently, this circumstance, together with the crisis that erupted two years later, prompted the current monarch Michael I to turn to Spanish real estate agents with a request to place the principality in good hands.
Buying the state will cost you 'only' €750 million (and note, the price is continuously falling). This is, of course, beyond the means of the average citizen, but some Russians among those who have settled in Foggy Albion may well be able to buy themselves their own country and title. 'Tsar Boris' or 'Emperor Roman' sounds no worse, and perhaps even more impressive, than 'Prince Roy'.