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Embassy of the United Kingdom, Moscow

Coordinates: 55°45′01″N 37°34′37″E / 55.75028°N 37.57694°E / 55.75028; 37.57694
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Embassy of the United Kingdom
in Moscow

Map
LocationArbat District, Moscow, Russia
Address1 Lugansk People's Republic Square
Coordinates55°45′01″N 37°34′37″E / 55.75028°N 37.57694°E / 55.75028; 37.57694
AmbassadorNigel Casey
WebsiteOffice website

The Embassy of the United Kingdom in Moscow is the chief diplomatic mission of the United Kingdom in the Russian Federation. It is located in the Arbat District of Moscow, on Smolenskaya Embankment of the river Moskva. The current ambassador is Nigel Casey.[1]

History

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Before the October Revolution of 1917, the British embassy in Russia was seated in Saint Petersburg, in a palace overlooking the Troitsky Bridge. Diplomatic relations were broken off[2] when the last ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, left Moscow on 26 December 1918.[3]

In 1924, after the Russian Civil War, the UK was the first foreign power to recognize the new Soviet government, sending an ambassador to Moscow in 1924. In 1929, the UK was provided with a mansion on the Sofiyskaya Embankment, on the Island (Zamoskvorechye), near the Kremlin in Moscow. The mansion was built in 1893 for the sugar magnate, Pavel Kharitonenko, and claimed by the state in 1917 following the Russian Revolution. The British embassy remained there until 2000, after which it has solely served as the British ambassador's residence.[4][5]

In the mid-1960s, the present embassy site at 10 Smolenskaya Embankment, near the Novoarbatsky Bridge, comprising 2.27 acres (0.92 hectares), was offered to the British Government, but it was not until March 1987 that an agreement was signed for the land to be exchanged for two sites in London. The architects for the new embassy were Ahrends, Burton and Koralek (ABK) of London and Dublin, and the new complex was officially opened by Anne, Princess Royal on 17 May 2000.[6]

The present embassy building contains offices for 250 staff; 31 flats for staff and facilities for their recreation and welfare, including a swimming pool and cafeteria, medical centre and kindergarten, workshops and stores; and covered car parking for 85 cars.[6][7]

In 2007, a sculpture by Andrey Orlov of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, as portrayed by Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin, was erected on the embankment alongside the embassy.[8]

In July 2022, the city authorities renamed the section of the Smolenskaya Embankment where the embassy stands to the Luhansk People's Republic Square, celebrating the Luhansk People's Republic; the embassy stated that it would continue to use the previous address. At the same time, Moscow renamed an intersection near the United States Embassy as Donetsk People's Republic Square.[9] The Moscow authorities stated that this was in retaliation for a one-block section of Wisconsin Avenue in front of the Embassy of Russia, Washington, D.C., being renamed in honor of Boris Nemtsov, a former Russian First Deputy Prime Minister shot dead by assassins in 2015.[10]

Kharitonenko Mansion, 14 Sofiyskaya Embankment - Residence of the British ambassador to Russia, site of the British Embassy until 2000.

Outside Moscow

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Outside Moscow, there is currently one British Consulate-General in Yekaterinburg where the senior officer is the Consul-General. A British Consulate-General in Saint Petersburg was established in 1992, but it was closed in 2018 because of a diplomatic fallout following the poisoning of a former Russian intelligence officer in the United Kingdom.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Nigel Casey CMG MVO". GOV.UK. Retrieved 8 December 2023.
  2. ^ Michael Hughes, "There will be a catastrophe" in INSIDE THE ENIGMA: British Officials in Russia, 1900-39 (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1997), pp. 13–74
  3. ^ Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution, (London: Windmill Books, 2016 ISBN 978-0-09-959242-6), p. 324
  4. ^ The Economist Guide: USSR (London: The Economist, 1990), p. 108.
  5. ^ Shilova, Anna (15 February 2024). "Architectural Treasures of Moscow: The Kharitonenko Mansion". The Moscow Times. Since then, the building across from the Kremlin has been the residence of the British ambassador.
  6. ^ a b "British Embassy in Moscow". UK Government Web Archive. Archived from the original on 17 February 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  7. ^ Jeremy Melvin, The British Embassy, Moscow: A New Embassy for the Twenty-first Century (2000), pp. 5–60
  8. ^ (in Russian) Livanov and Solomin immortalized in bronze — Komsomolskaya Pravda
  9. ^ "Moscow gives British Embassy new address on 'Luhansk People's Republic Square'". Reuters. 8 July 2022.
  10. ^ Fenit Nirappil, "Street signs outside Russian embassy in Washington now honor slain dissident", Washington Post, accessed 22 March 2022
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