Embassy of Russia in Tallinn is the diplomatic mission of

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

History

The embassy building is situated in the old medieval quarter of

Tallinn Old Town Tallinn Old Town () is the oldest part of Tallinn, Estonia. Old Town of Tallinn has managed to wholly preserve its structure of medieval and Hanseatic origin. Old Town represents an exceptionally intact 13th century city plan. Since 1997, the are ...

. It was originally built around 1890 as a house and underwent several renovations before becoming an embassy. It was declared a cultural heritage monument in 1997. The building was first a Soviet embassy in 1921. After WWII it was in use by the Soviet Ministry of the Interior. The Estonian Embassy in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

and the Russian Embassy in Tallinn have been operating since

independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

in 1991, but until 2004 the ownership of buildings and plots owned by embassies and the conditions for their use were unregulated and a draft agreement was made to transfer ownership of the properties. It is unknown whether the draft was signed by either party. Following the Russian Federation's annexation of Crimea in 2014, demonstrations in support of Ukraine were held in front of the embassy to express solidarity with Ukraine and disdain for the annexation. Diplomatic relations between the two nations soured in the prelude to and during the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

. Estonia joined Latvia and Lithuania in expelling Russian diplomats in March 2022. In retaliation, the Russian Embassy posted on its Facebook page that Estonian diplomats would be expelled from Russia. In April 2022, demonstrations in support of Ukraine where held again in front of the embassy in response to allegations of rape and sexual assault by Russian forces in Ukraine. In January 2023, Russia recalled its ambassador from Estonia, reasoning that Russia-Estonia relations were being 'purposefully destroyed' by the Estonian side.

Previous ambassadors

* 1992–1997 Aleksandr Trofimov * 1997–2000

Aleksei Gluhkhov Alexey ( ; ), is a Russian and Bulgarian male given name derived from the Greek ''Aléxios'' (), meaning "Defender", and thus of the same origin as the Latin Alexius. Similar Ukrainian and Belarusian names are romanized as Oleksii (Олек� ...

* 2001–2006

Konstantin Provalov Konstantin Ivanovich Provalov (Russian: Константин Иванович Провалов; 12 June 1906 – 8 December 1981) was a Soviet Army Colonel general and Hero of the Soviet Union. Provalov was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Uni ...

* 2006–2010

Nikolai Uspensky Nikolai Vasilyevich Uspensky (; 31 May 1837 – 2 November 1889) was a Russian writer, and a cousin of fellow writer Gleb Uspensky. Uspensky wrote extensively about the realities of peasant life in rural Russia around the time of the Emancipat ...

* 2010–2015

Yuri Merzlyakov Yuri Nikolayevich Merzlyakov (; born 9 April 1949) is a Russian diplomat, who was one of the 3 co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group. Yuri Merzlyakov graduated from MGIMO in 1971 and Diplomatic Academy of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 19 ...

* 2015–2021 Aleksandr Petrov * 2022-2023

Vladimir Lipayev Vladimir Georgyevich Lipayev (Russian: Владимир Георгиевич Липаев; born on 6 February 1959), is a Russian diplomat who has served as the ambassador to Romania since June 2024. He had served as the ambassador to Estonia fr ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Embassy of Russia, Tallinn

Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

Estonia–Russia relations Tallinn Old Town

History

Previous ambassadors

See also

References