New Blog 1: Russian Consulate Seattle

Sunday 2 December 2012

Russian Consulate Seattle

The Russian Federation has one of the largest networks of embassies and consulates of any country. Russia has significant interests in Eastern Europe, the Near East and especially in the former states of the Soviet Union. It also has extensive ties to countries in the developing world, a legacy of Cold War diplomatic efforts to extend its influence in Asia and Africa which are now more important for commercial reasons. Russia established several consulates in the United States and Canada to cater to Russian immigrants. In 1917, the Tsarist government vanished. Consuls in seven U.S. cities and three Canadian cities maintained tsarist loyalties and received financing from the U.S. government. The consuls stopped their services in the late 1920s; the U.S. government seized the records of the consulates. The seizure started a long dispute. The National Archives and Records Administration received the documents in 1949. In 1980 the U.S. government loaned the documents of the Canadian consulates to the Library and Archives Canada. On 31 January 1990 the U.S. returned the documents to the Soviet Union and kept the microfilms as evidence.