1. Warsaw
Alexey Vitvitsky / Sputnik
The Russian embassy in Poland looks like a real palace. Indeed, it was built in the 1950s in the style of St. Petersburg’s 18th and 19th-century classical palaces.
2. Helsinki
AFP
Built in the so-called Stalinist Empire style, the Russian embassy in Finland was where USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev and the U.S. President Gerald Ford met in 1975, when the famous Helsinki Accords was signed in an attempt to improve relations between the Communists and the West.
3. Havana
Legion Media
The Russian embassy in Havana sticks out like a sore thumb. Some go as far to say that constructivist building is one of the city’s top attractions.
4. Minsk
Viktor Tolochko / Sputnik
This building in Belarus is one of the biggest among Russian embassies. It’s also one of the newest, built in 2009.
5. Beijing
AFP
One of, if not the largest Russian embassy is located in Beijing. It was opened in the mid-1950s on the spot where the Russian ecclesiastical mission once existed.
6. Shanghai
Legion Media
The exquisite building of the Russian consulate in Shanghai was erected during World War One. They say that the soil for the foundations was delivered directly from Russia. It was designed by a German architect so it looks more like something from the German Renaissance period.
7. London
Roger Templeman
The building was rented in 1930 from the South African “wool millionaire” Sir Lewis Richardson. In 1991 the rent agreement was prolonged for 100 years. Russia pays a symbolic one pound per year while Britain gives a single ruble for its ambassador’s residence in Moscow.
8. Berlin
Legion Media
The Russian embassy has occupied the same place in the center of Berlin since the mid-19th century. During WWII the Nazis made the building the residence of the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. The current building was constructed in 1952 in the then-GDR.
9. Prague
Igor Shamshin / TASS
Russia (then the USSR) received this building in Prague after WWII. Originally the villa of banker Friedrich Petschek, it was nationalized and transferred to the Soviet Union as a gift to the Russian people for their contribution in the fight against the Nazis. The villa is designed in the French Baroque style.