The "Russian House" in Berlin remains open - why?

2023-11-21 08:51:40, Kosova & Bota CNA

The "Russian House" in Berlin remains open - why?

The "Russian House" in Berlin is the largest state cultural institution of Russia in Europe

The "Russian House" in Berlin is the largest state cultural institution of Russia in Europe. Its mission is to spread Russian culture and language. The center was opened in 1984 in the then capital of the GDR as the "House of Soviet Science and Culture". Since the beginning of Russia's war against Ukraine, the "Russian houses" in Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia and North Macedonia have been closed. Even in Berlin, Ukrainian activists have demonstrated several times against the "Russian House" demanding its closure, but without success.

Sanctions or not: "Russian House" remains open

The cultural institution is run by Rossotrudnichestvo, a Russian authority that is on the EU sanctions list. On its website it is said that it is represented in 80 countries of the world with 87 branches, which are unofficially called "Russian Houses" as of 2021.

However, the director of "Russian House" in Berlin, Pavel Isvolsky, explains that EU sanctions against Rossotrudnichestvo do not apply to "Russian House". Because "Russian House" is an independent legal entity and is not mentioned at all in the EU sanctions lists. "The fact that 'Russian House' is financed by Rossotrudnichestvo does not mean that the house is subject to the sanctions imposed against Rossotrudnichestvo," he told DW. It is based on a letter from Berlin lawyer Bertrand Malmendier, who not only represented the Russian oil company Rosneft in German courts in 2022, but also defended Viktor Medvedchuk in Ukraine, a pro-Russian politician there and a close confidant of Vladimir Putin .

Director of the "Russian House" in Berlin, Pavel Isvolsky

"This is an unpleasant issue, because it gives the impression that the Federal Republic of Germany is not really implementing the sanctions imposed by the EU, which should also be applied in Germany as an immediately applicable law," lawyer Patrick Heinemann told DW. He represents former Bundestag deputy from the Green Party Volker Beck. In early 2023 Beck filed a complaint against "Russian House" for alleged violations of foreign trade law. However, the Berlin prosecutor's office has stopped the investigation. Reason: "Those responsible have diplomatic status".

But now Bertrand Malmendier has filed a complaint against Volker Beck for false suspicions. In early 2023, Beck wrote: "It must not happen that while people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian army and Ukrainian cities are being reduced to ashes, Putin's cultural embassies organize sympathies for the Kremlin. This must stop. . ( ...) The house could perhaps find a new meaning as a center of Russian and Belarusian exile."

The Russian House in Berlin

Important support for "Russian House"

The "Russian House" has on its side not only a well-known lawyer, but also the East German Economic Committee, whose director wrote to the financial sanctions department of the German Federal Bank, the Bundesbank, in mid-October (the letter is available to DW ). In this letter it was said that we "unreservedly" support sanctions against Russia for the war against Ukraine, but that sanctions against the center of Russian culture are wrong. They "give grist to the mill of Russian propaganda," which claims that the West as a whole sees Russia as an enemy. "We consider the sanctions against "Russian House" and the freezing of accounts to be absolutely wrong," writes the director of the Eastern Committee, Michael Harms.

Are Russian House accounts really blocked? The press office of the Bundesbank refuses to provide information on this. The only indirect confirmation of this is the statement of the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Minister, Maria Zakharova. In early 2023, she threatened that, if Germany did not unblock the accounts of the "Russian House", Russia would take countermeasures against the Goethe Institute. And indeed: in the spring of 2023, the Russian Central Bank blocked the accounts of the Goethe Institute.

Even the leader of "Russian House" avoids the direct question about the blocking of accounts. He says they have "certain procedures for making online transfers", that the accounts work and all the necessary transfers can be made, although the procedure has become more complicated./ DW