The Russian Embassy compound is located in the
northeastern corner of the old city in a site well-removed from other diplomatic
areas in Beijing. It sits just inside what used to be the city wall and is now the Second
Ring Road (which rather unintuitively is the first and innermost of the ring roads that
loop around the city). I looked for information about the facility and its history, but did not
find a great deal. Though I did learn a bit about getting visas to Russia. Russia and China
have a long and complex history of interaction. This location has apparently housed a
Russian mission of one kind or another since the 1600s. The spacious grounds covering
some 15 or 16 hectares originally belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church. The central
building (which originally served as what I do not know) was redesigned as the Soviet
Union's embassy in the mid-1950s and today continues to serve as the Russian Federation's embassy. |