The first thing you need to understand about the building that, until very recently, housed the Russian Consulate in San Francisco — a city where topography is destiny, where wealth and power concentrate, quite literally, at the top — is its sense of elevation. This is a neighborhood that radiates a type of wealth, power, and prestige that long predates the current wave of nouveau riche tech millionaires, or the wave before that, or the one before that. It is old and solid and comfortable with its privilege; its denizens know they have a right to rule. Indeed, from Pacific Heights, one can simultaneously gaze out on the city, the bay, the Golden Gate Bridge — and, beyond, the vast, frigid Pacific. I rushed to the consulate the day the closure announcement was made and watched the building sit impassively in the heat, while the media crews cooled off in the shade.

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The President Donald Trump's administration ordered the expulsion of a total of 60 Russian intelligence and diplomatic officers and a shutdown of the Russian Consulate in Seattle on Monday. The Seattle consulate serves more than a dozen states. KIRO 7 News will have team coverage at 5 p. Watch on-air or online here. Here's what to know now. The United States and more than a dozen European nations kicked out Russian diplomats as joint punishment for Moscow's alleged poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain. Britain has accused Russia of involvement in the March 4 poisoning of former Russian spy Serge Skripal and his daughter, who have remained in critical condition -- accusations that Moscow has fiercely denied. Consulates provide passport, birth registration and many others services for visiting or resident American citizens in a country. The Seattle facility is a particular counter-intelligence concern to the U.
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Madison Street Photo by Matt M. When the Russian Consulate in Seattle opened in the early s, it was a gesture of goodwill at a period when relations between the U. It unfolded in concert with the establishment of an American Consulate in Vladivostok, on the far eastern edge of Russia. The two Pacific Rim port cities had been largely closed off to diplomacy between the two countries, thanks in part to their proximity to sensitive landmarks, such as the Bangor Naval Base on the Kitsap Peninsula, said Carol Vipperman, who helped get the Seattle consulate off the ground. Jackson Foundation, which has devoted significant efforts to human rights and supporting Russian studies at the University of Washington. Now, with the closure of the consulate in Seattle ordered by the Trump administration, Vipperman fears the Vladivostok consulate will soon follow. Derek Norberg, president of the Council for U. The Trump administration said the consulate in Seattle was pegged for closure due to its proximity to Bangor as well as to Boeing.
The tit-for-tat move, which Secretary of State Rex W. Lavrov, in a morning phone call, bore all of the hallmarks of a Cold War-era grudge match. But the administration seemed eager to contain the fallout, casting the move as a straightforward return to diplomatic parity between the countries rather than the latest volley in an increasingly combative relationship. The Foreign Ministry said that Mr. The administration is not expelling any Russian diplomats from the United States, nor is it touching the staff at the Russian Embassy in Washington. McFaul, who served as ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration. The State Department did not say how many employees would be affected by the closings, although officials said it would be far fewer than — a figure that would leave no Russian diplomats in the United States.