The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Turkey is the official representative of the

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

and the

Government of the Russian Federation 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 ...

to the

and the

Government of Turkey The Government of Turkey ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Hükûmeti) is the national government of Turkey. It is governed as a unitary state under a presidential representative democracy and a constitutional republic within a pluriform multi-party ...

. The ambassador and his staff work at large in the Embassy of Russia in

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

. There are consulates general in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

Trabzon Trabzon (; Ancient Greek: Tραπεζοῦς (''Trapezous''), Ophitic Pontic Greek: Τραπεζούντα (''Trapezounta''); Georgian: ტრაპიზონი (''Trapizoni'')), historically known as Trebizond in English, is a city on the B ...

and

Antalya la, Attalensis grc, Ἀτταλειώτης , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 07xxx , area_code = (+90) 242 , registration_plate = 07 , blank_name = Licence plate ...

, and an honorary consul based in Izmir. The post of Russian Ambassador to Turkey is currently held by Alexei Yerkhov, incumbent since 19 June 2017.

History of diplomatic relations

Diplomatic relations between the antecedent states of Russia and Turkey date back to the fifteenth century. An early Russian embassy was sent to

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

in the mid-1490s, during the reign of

Ivan III of Russia Ivan III Vasilyevich (russian: Иван III Васильевич; 22 January 1440 – 27 October 1505), also known as Ivan the Great, was a Grand Prince of Moscow and Grand Prince of all Rus'. Ivan served as the co-ruler and regent for his blin ...

. Representatives continued to be exchanged intermittently during the period of the

Tsardom of Russia The Tsardom of Russia or Tsardom of Rus' also externally referenced as the Tsardom of Muscovy, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter I ...

, and after the declaration of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

in 1721. Relations were periodically suspended during periods of conflict, and finally came to a close in 1914 with the Ottoman entry into the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

on the side of the Triple Alliance. During the war, the Russian Revolution toppled the tsar and brought an end to the empire. Relations were resumed and gradually strengthened between the Ottomans and the

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

from 1919 onwards, and survived the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate in 1922 and the creation of the Republic of Turkey the following year. Meanwhile the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

had been established that same year. Letters were exchanged between Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs

Georgy Chicherin Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin (24 November 1872 – 7 July 1936), also spelled Tchitcherin, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and a Soviet politician who served as the first People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs in the Soviet government from ...

, with the official date for the establishment of diplomatic relations being 3 June 1920, the date of Chicherin's letter. The two states remained in diplomatic contact for the remainder of the existence of the Soviet Union. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Turkey recognised the Russian Federation as the successor state of the USSR, and the incumbent Soviet ambassador, , continued as the Russian ambassador to Turkey until 1994. Diplomatic relations fluctuated during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, with tensions rising during the

Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , partof = the foreign involvement in the Syrian civil war, and the military intervention against ISIL , image = , image_size = , border = , caption = To ...

, during which Turkey shot down a Russian jetfighter in 2015. Relations were normalised in the aftermath, though in 2016 the Russian ambassador to Turkey,

Andrei Karlov Andrei Gennadyevich Karlov (russian: Андрей Геннадьевич Карлов; 4 February 1954 – 19 December 2016) was a Russian diplomat who served as the List of ambassadors of Russia to Turkey, Russian ambassador to Turkey and earl ...

, was assassinated by an off-duty Turkish policeman. He became the fourth Russian ambassador to be killed while in post, and the first since the Soviet ambassador to Poland

Pyotr Voykov Pyotr Lazarevich Voykov (russian: Пётр Ла́заревич Во́йков; ua, Петро Лазарович Войков; party aliases: Пётрусь and Интеллигент, or ''Piotrus'' and '' Intelligent'') ( – June 7, 19 ...

was assassinated in Warsaw in 1927.

List of representatives (1702 – present)

Representatives of the Tsardom of Russia to the Ottoman Empire (1702 – 1721)

Representatives of the Russian Empire to the Ottoman Empire (1721 – 1917)

Representatives of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ottoman Empire (1919 – 1923)

Representatives of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to the Republic of Turkey (1923 – 1991)

Representatives of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Turkey (1991 – present)

References

{{Lists of ambassadors of Russia

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...