Embassy of Russia in Ottawa
Encyclopedia
The Embassy of Russia in Canada is the Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n embassy in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, It is located at 285 Charlotte, at the eastern terminus of Laurier Avenue. To the south it looks out on Strathcona Park
Strathcona Park
-Parks:*Strathcona Provincial Park in British Columbia, Canada*Strathcona Park in Ottawa, Canada...

 while to the east it looks out on the Rideau River
Rideau River
thumb|Rapids on the Rideau River opposite [[Carleton University]].The Rideau River is a Southern Ontario river which flows north from Upper Rideau Lake and empties into the Ottawa River at Rideau Falls in Ottawa, Ontario. Its length is 146 km...

. Russia also maintains consulates in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

 and Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

.

History of the building

The site was originally given to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 in 1942. It contained a large manor that had formerly belonged to J. Fred Booth, son of lumber baron J.R. Booth. This manor had been the site of the marriage of Fred Booth's daughter Lois to Prince Erik of Denmark
Count Erik of Rosenborg
Prince Erik, Count of Rosenborg was a Danish and Icelandic prince. He was born in Copenhagen, a son of Prince Valdemar of Denmark and Princess Marie of Orléans.-Marriage and issue:...

, son of Prince Valdemar of Denmark
Prince Valdemar of Denmark
Prince Valdemar of Denmark, GCTE was a member of the Danish Royal Family, the youngest son of Christian IX of Denmark and his wife Luise of Hesse-Kassel...

. The building was expropriated by the government during the Second World War for use by the navy, but was instead handed over to the Soviets to house their growing legation. It was in this building that Igor Gouzenko
Igor Gouzenko
Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. He defected on September 5, 1945, with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West...

 worked and from where he removed documents before defecting in 1945.

On January 1, 1956 a fire broke out on the third floor of the embassy. Embassy employees tried to put it out themselves and did not call the fire department. They were unsuccessful and neighbours soon noticed smoke billowing from the building. When the fire department arrived the Soviets would not let them in, insisting they fight the fire from the sidewalk outside. Mayor Charlotte Whitton
Charlotte Whitton
Charlotte Elizabeth Whitton, OC, CBE was a Canadian feminist and mayor of Ottawa. She was the first female mayor of a major city in Canada, serving from 1951 to 1956 and again from 1960 to 1964...

 arrived at the blaze and demanded the fire department be let in, and threatened to have the embassy staff arrested. The dispute between the mayor and the ambassador was mediated by cabinet minister Paul Martin
Paul Joseph James Martin
Joseph James Guillaume Paul Martin, PC, CC, QC , often referred to as Paul Martin, Sr, was a noted Canadian politician. He was the father of Paul Martin , who served as Prime Minister of Canada from 2003 - 2006.-Early life:Martin was born in Ottawa, Ontario, the son of Lumina and Joseph...

, who had also come to the scene. Eventually, the fire fighters were allowed in, but only after the Soviets had removed large numbers of sensitive documents and equipment. It was too late, however, and the building was gutted.

The remains of the manor were demolished and the current stark Soviet style building was erected in its place. The Canadian security service, in cooperation with MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...

, infiltrated the construction site in an attempt to bug
Covert listening device
A covert listening device, more commonly known as a bug or a wire, is usually a combination of a miniature radio transmitter with a microphone. The use of bugs, called bugging, is a common technique in surveillance, espionage and in police investigations.A bug does not have to be a device...

 the building in an operation that was known as Operation Dew Worm. They concentrated on the northwest corner of the building, the logical site for a communications centre. The Soviets, however, built their communications centre in a sealed chamber elsewhere in the building and the bugs proved useless.

With the fall of the Soviet Union the building became the Russian embassy. The massive bust of Lenin was removed from the lobby and soon after the building's exterior was modified to make it less imposing.

Soviet Ambassadors to Canada

  • Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev
    Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev
    Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev was a Soviet politician and historian who was a Soviet governmental official in the 1980s and a member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...

     - Soviet ambassador to Canada in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Russian Ambassadors to Canada

Since 2003, the Russian ambassador to Canada is Georgiy Mamedov.
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