Vodka, caviar and watermelon from Fidel: how Russian diplomats rested at their dachas in the USA

Russian diplomatic dachas in the USA have been empty for three years. The Americans restricted access to them, accusing Russia of using suburban homes for intelligence operations. Correspondents Air force We went to Maryland to find out how the dacha life of Russian diplomats looked from the outside.

Photo: video frame

The estate on the coast of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland belongs to Russia, but since December 2016, the Russians have not appeared there.

Three years ago, on December 29, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama imposed anti-Russian sanctions in response to cyber attacks during the 2016 presidential campaign in America. Moscow denied the allegations.

In addition to the deportation, 35 US diplomats closed access to two diplomatic suburban residences in Maryland and New York. Both belong to Russia.

The White House said that the Russians used these dachas for intelligence purposes, without specifying how. In the Kremlin, it was reported that outside the city, staff of diplomatic missions only rested.

Of all the Russian diplomatic property arrested in the United States, the area in Maryland is the largest in area. 18,2 hectares of land with two mansions of the Georgian era, the USSR acquired in 1972 year. The estate is located in 108 km from the Russian Embassy in Washington.

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It was built by financier John Jacob Rascob, who at one time invested in the construction of the Empire State Building in New York.

Rasokob built a three-story mansion on the site in Maryland and another two-story house with an attic for his children.

After his death, real estate changed owners several times until the Soviet government bought it for $ 1,2 million, as the New York Times wrote. Small country houses, a tennis court, a football field - all this appeared in the residence when it became the Soviet diplomatic property.

The mansion on the 35 rooms with wine cellar, 12 bathrooms and 13 fireplaces was used as the ambassador’s residence. The rest of the house at the weekend came to the embassy staff.

After the collapse of the USSR, when this property went to Russia, according to the Associated Press, it cost $ 3 million.

Regattas and parties

Local residents told the BBC that they had good neighborly relations with employees of the Russian diplomatic mission.

An employee of the farm, bordering the embassy dachas, John Waley recalled how he was once called to dinner by Yuri Dubinin (he worked as ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the United States in 1986-1990).

And in September, according to him, diplomats organized a holiday to which they invited locals: “In general, a day of fun. They invited us to dinner and cocktails. They had their own band and played music.”

Photo: video frame

The head of the local municipality, Steven Wilson, also remembered the fun of diplomatic workers at their dachas. “Bonfires, terrible-sounding Russian songs,” he lists, laughing. He himself had not been to the embassy residence.

“Everything around was fenced off. There was very little interaction with people who came there periodically,” says Wilson. According to him, FBI agents were monitoring the dachas. Agents conducted surveillance from Wilson's beach - he lives across the river from the embassy residence.

“I never heard any stories about dark things going on there, about submarines or laser beams at night, nothing like that,” he said.

John Wiley added that most of the time at the dachas lived only technical personnel, about eight people, and diplomatic workers came only on weekends or on holidays.

Photo: video frame

Local farmer Peter Schaeffer (his land borders Russian dachas) waxes nostalgic about his conversations with Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin: “I think he’s the smartest person I’ve ever met.” Dobrynin headed the Soviet diplomatic mission to the United States from 1962 to 1986.

“One day we sat with him over a bottle of wine. There was half a watermelon on the side table,” the farmer recalls. - He asked me: “Peter, do you want a piece of watermelon?” - I told him: “Mr. Dobrynin, it’s mid-January, where did you get it?” - "What do you think? - he answered. - Fidel!

Schaeffer recalls how the two of them were discussing the Caribbean crisis over a bottle of wine, and criticized the Obama administration for deciding to shut down Russia’s access to summer houses.

Photo: video frame

“Obama kicked them out because he wanted to complicate the situation for the incoming president,” the farmer is sure. A fan of Donald Trump, he also scolds the State Department, which has been protecting the embassy dachas since 2016.

According to him, Russian diplomats paid him 4200 dollars a year so that Schaeffer would maintain the road to dachas in good condition.

“Nobody cares about the roads now, I won’t repair them for the State Department, what the hell,” he says indignantly.

How Russia is trying to return the embassy cottages

Since 2016, in addition to the arrest of summer cottages in Maryland and New York, the American authorities, as part of the strengthening of the sanctions regime, have closed access to Russian consulates and residences of general consuls in San Francisco and Seattle, as well as to the premises of trade missions in Washington and New York . In September 2019, Yahoo News, citing anonymous interlocutors from among former White House employees, wrote that it was dachas in Maryland and New York that were used as Russian intelligence bases.

The Russian Federation is seeking the return of its real estate. In July 2017, both the Foreign Ministry and the State Department said they were close to an agreement to remove the arrest from the dachas, but this did not happen. The Russian Foreign Ministry accused the United States of violating the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

The US rejected these allegations. Under the US Foreign Missions Act, the Secretary of State has the right to request a foreign representative to stop using any property if necessary to protect the national interests of the United States.

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In September 2017, President Vladimir Putin instructed the Foreign Ministry to file a lawsuit in the United States to regain access to diplomatic ownership. The fate of the claim is still unclear.

Kommersant wrote that the American company White & Case will represent Russia’s interests in US courts. However, the publication’s sources in government agencies admitted that the chances of getting the seizure lifted from real estate are minimal.

According to the American Foreign Missions Act, if diplomatic property is not used for a year, the secretary of state may decide to sell it.

The media wrote that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also offered to sell real estate to Russia, but Moscow refused. In May 2019, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said in an interview with the BBC that the “hard option” of selling Russian diplomatic property at auction by the American authorities “is not yet being considered.”

“To my bitterness, nothing is happening,” Antonov said. “Not only is it still not being returned to us, but we are not even allowed onto the threshold of our property.” Antonov asked the State Department for permission to check what was happening inside Russian facilities, but was refused. “We look at our buildings from the outside and we see that there is someone there, something is being done there,” he emphasized.

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