Communists' lack of foresight leaves embassy an annual rent of US$2.50

[dArKeR]

AFP , MOSCOW
Sunday, May 23, 2004,Page 11

Located on a quaint, quiet square in the heart of Moscow, the lavish early 20th century mansion which the US ambassador calls home is an architectural gem for which Washington pays the princely sum of US$2.50 in annual rent.

That pocket money is now at the center of a minor row between Moscow and Washington, which also reflects the misfortunes of the Russian currency since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 as it underwent repeated devaluations.

Built a few years before the 1917 Communist revolution by a rich merchant, Nikolai Vtorov, the mansion, now called Spaso House after the leafy Spasopeskovskaya Square on which it stands, became the US ambassador's residence in 1933, when the US and the Soviet Union finally established diplomatic relations.

Its present rent is governed by a contract signed in 1985 for a period of 20 years, at a time when few could have imagined that the Soviet Union was about to collapse -- or at least so soon.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2004/05/23/2003156658

[htuttle]

1. The US signed a contract with the Soviet Union

Why would they think that contract would remain valid after the Soviet government fell?

The article says that the new owner of the building has been attempting to raise the rent since 1996, but the US has been 'rejecting' the new contracts.

How diplomatic.

[Senior citizen]

2. U.S. should repudiate that Commie contract

and insist on paying fair market value. What happened to our capitalist principles--aren't we supposed to be introducing a free market over there? :)