A monument to a 19th-century wreck of a Russian ship near Rialto Beach received a final push for funding in the state’s 2013-2015 capital budget.

The budget includes $40,000 to finish the monument to the Sv. Nikolai, which was blown by a storm onto Rialto Beach in 1808.

Bill Sperry has been working on the project for years. Currently, it includes a building on the Upper Hoh Road, but the funding will allow Sperry and his volunteer crew to install flag poles, landscaping and interpretive signs.

As Sperry tells it, the lucky 13 Russian crew members who survived the wreck retreated up the Hoh River valley, where they lived in hand-built shelters for nine months after the wreck of the Nikolai. Nine members of the crew died in the wreck.

The signs, Sperry said, will tell the story of the Russians interactions with native Makah and Quileute after their landing.

So far, the monument has progressed with about $45,000 in private donations.

The Peterson family donated land for the project.

A statue of St. Nikolai is expected to be donated to the monument by the Russian government, Sperry said, which is expected to send representatives to the monument’s dedication next spring.

After fighting with the Quileute, the Russians surrendered and were traded to the Makah, who kept them in Neah Bay for almost two years until a Boston-based ship landed in Neah Bay in May 1810. The captain of that ship traded the Makah for the Russian survivors and returned them to their settlement in what is now Sitka, Alaska.

Sperry credited the North Olympic Peninsula’s three legislators, Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, and Reps. Steve Tharinger, D-Dungeness, and Kevin Van De Wege, D-Sequim, for dedicating the funds for the monument. He added Sen. Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside, chair of the capital budget committee in the Senate, played an instrumental role in securing the monument’s final funds.