Pioneer Point is a house and surrounding 45-acre estate near

Centreville, Maryland Centreville is an incorporated town in Queen Anne's County, Maryland, United States on the Delmarva Peninsula. Incorporated in 1794, it is the county seat of Queen Anne's County. The population was 4,285 at the 2010 census. The ZIP code is 216 ...

, on

Maryland's Eastern Shore The Eastern Shore of Maryland is a part of the U.S. state of Maryland that lies mostly on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay. Nine counties are normally included in the region. The Eastern Shore is part of the larger Delmarva Peninsula that ...

owned by the

Government of Russia The Government of Russia exercises executive power in the Russian Federation. The members of the government are the prime minister, the deputy prime ministers, and the federal ministers. It has its legal basis in the Constitution of the Russia ...

as a recreational place for its diplomatic staff in the United States. The estate lies on a peninsula formed by the confluence of the

Corsica Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...

and

Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

rivers.Adam Taylor
The luxurious, 45-acre compound in Maryland being shut down for alleged Russian espionage - The Washington Post
accessdate: December 31, 2016 Pioneer Point is the former estate of wealthy business executive, and builder

John J. Raskob John Jakob Raskob, KCSG (March 19, 1879 – October 15, 1950) was a financial executive and businessman for DuPont and General Motors, and the builder of the Empire State Building. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1928 t ...

who is best known for building the

Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Raskob constructed the 19 room mansion originally known as "Hartefeld Hall" after purchasing a 1600-acre tract of land on the Eastern Shore in 1925. Raskob later built another large house nearby to accommodate his 13 children. After Raskob's death in 1950 the estate was subdivided and the mansion changed hands several times. The property was bought by the

Soviet government The Government of the Soviet Union ( rus, Прави́тельство СССР, p=prɐˈvʲitʲɪlʲstvə ɛs ɛs ɛs ˈɛr, r=Pravítelstvo SSSR, lang=no), formally the All-Union Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly ab ...

in 1972, with subsequent Soviet additions to the property being funded by granting two properties in Moscow to the

United States State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...

. Pioneer Point was bought by the

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

for $3 million in the aftermath of the

collapse of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

. It was likened to a

dacha A dacha ( rus, дача, p=ˈdatɕə, a=ru-dacha.ogg) is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of post-Soviet countries, including Russia. A cottage (, ') or shack serving as a family's main or only home, or an outbu ...

Yuri Ushakov Yuri Viktorovich Ushakov (russian: Юрий Викторович Ушаков; born 13 March 1947) is a Russian and former Soviet diplomat who served as the Ambassador of Russia to the United States from 1998 until 2008. Since 2012, he has been a ...

, the

Russian ambassador to the United States The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the United States of America is the official representative of the President of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Russian Federation to the President of ...

in 2007. Pioneer Point was treated as state property of the

and activities there were protected under

diplomatic immunity Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law by which certain foreign government officials are recognized as having legal immunity from the jurisdiction of another country.

. On December 29, 2016, Russian access to the site was commuted in the wake of the alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 United States presidential election as part of a number of sanctions taken by the United States against Russian diplomatic personnel.Ian Duncan
Shut down Russian Eastern Shore retreat offers glimpse at spy battles
''Baltimore Sun'' (December 30, 2016). President Barack Obama, in announcing the sanctions, stated that Pioneer Point and another compound in New York were "used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes." On May 31, 2017, six months after the sanctions, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' reported that President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

and his administration had decided to return Pioneer Point back to the Russians.

References

{{Russia–United States relations Houses in Queen Anne's County, Maryland Soviet Union–United States relations Russia–United States relations Russian ambassadorial residences