What does the "Embassy of the DPR" in Moscow look like: it is given only by a sign on an office building

The celebrations about the opening of the DPR Embassy in the Russian Federation, which have been widely announced over the past two weeks, and a little more, since May, did not take place. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has not arrived, the international wagon, where foreign guests from South Ossetia and Syria were called. It happens, they did not give up. Come tomorrow.

A new golden plate with a double -headed eagle, on the stomach of a bird - the figure of an armed angel, is already hanging at the entrance to the beautiful five -story in the very center of Moscow, in Grokholsky Lane, not far from the Embassy of Portugal. The Coat of arms of the DPR as if through tracing paper, they sang from the Russian one, only the heads of the eagle without crowns, paws without a scepter and power, beaks without tongues. A modest bird and, one must understand, silent. The tail says: the embassy of the Donetsk People’s Republic in the Russian Federation. There are no other plates on the facade of the house 13/2 in Grokholsky. And the first impression - all this is a five -story building made of glass and concrete is reserved for the DPR diplomacy. A man with a gray hedgehog on his head and in the T -shirt “Security” leisurely leave the door, stops on the porch, squints, seeing that I am photographing. But for some reason he does not offer to leave, he does not grab the camera from his hands.

“Yesterday two men came and hung it,” he nods at a sign. -And the day before yesterday and on Yandex-cards appeared.

On the maps of Yandex at this address, indeed, the Frau Marta company was previously listed.

Now it does not appear, from July 10 it indicates: "Embassy of the DPR." And nothing more, as if really the young republic in Russia respects that your Portugal.

The opening of the “Embassies of the DPR and the LPR” in Moscow, the heads of not completely recognized republics have been talked since spring. In May, the “Ambassador of the DPR to the Russian Federation” Olga Makeeva wrote in her telegram channel that the event was scheduled for June and added: “As soon as everything is ready, we will announce the exact date.” In June, Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik (the head of the DPR and LPR, respectively) transferred the event to the end of the month, "or even in the early July." This was told by the Star channel, calling both "heads of regions." “We don’t call the date and place, based on safety measures,” Pushilin explained, and the beekeeper innocently added that “at this stage there are some technical difficulties.”

But “technical difficulties”, apparently, was eliminated. In any case, it seemed to the “Ministry of Internal Affairs of the DPR” on June 30. RIA Novosti quoted the telegram channel of the department: “We are happy to report that the opening ceremony of the Embassy of the Donetsk People’s Republic in the Russian Federation will be held on July 12, 2022.” True, there is no time when they cut the ribbon, nor the address where the guests and the press was called. A week before the event, the address still became known, but time - no. Probably also "based on safety measures."

A week ago, on July 6, it turned out that the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Sergei Lavrov, would take part in the opening ceremony, was told by Aleksey Zaitsev, Deputy Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He will come, he promised, and other "representatives of the leadership of Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church, socio-political circles and business." The DPR diplomatic missiles promised that "representatives of the countries who recognized the Republic of Donbass will certainly be at the ceremony." Two diplomats called such countries, except Russia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. “As well as [representatives] of Syria, who recently announced the intention to take such a step,” they added. Syria, in fact, by that time for a day as this important step took. The DPR diplomats probably did not have time to please the Syrian diplomat also hurry to them.

Total. Representatives of Russia, Syria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were invited to the ceremony scheduled for July 12, “as well as a number of other diplomatic missions of foreign states and international organizations accredited in Moscow”. And also, as announced by the DPR Foreign Ministry, “figures of science, education, culture, sports, representatives of the business sphere, public organizations, the media of Russia and foreign countries”.

“But you never know what they announce,” the guard waves his hand on the porch of the “Embassy”. - Today - one, in a minute - the other.

And indeed: all this huge crowd of important and busy people on July 12 was waiting for brutal disappointment.

“They canceled,” the guard reports.

- Have you canceled for a long time? - I ask, looking at the clock: 9 in the morning.

“But today in the morning they canceled,” the guard answers. - They just called - they said: there will be nothing today. And when it will be, they did not say. And they did not tell anyone.

So far, they say, it is canceled, and then it will be clarified: when, what. But today it is definitely not.

Another man comes out onto the porch, lights up, hears our dialogue, smiles.

“You, girl, do not be upset,” he reassures me. - They will open where they will go. I’m celebrating the holidays every day. Either the Jews, then among the Azerbaijanis, someone has a holiday every day.

A girl walks through the courtyard quickly.

- To work? - Her guards welcomes her porch. - Well, go, go.

And then it turns out that the girl goes to the “Red Cross”, which also has offices in a five -story building. Maybe Frau Marta, who disappeared from Yandex cards, is still in place. But the "Embassy of the DPR" here will definitely be not one.

“Immediately the office center is large,” the guard explains. - There is no one here.

- Have you thought the whole building for the DPR? But where are they so much? - A cheerful smoker laughs, he just works in one of the many offices. - They were allocated one floor. I don’t know where to divide those who used to sit there. But there have been a lot of empty offices lately.

The question on which floor of the office center the "Embassy of the DPR" will work, the guard forces to strain.

- And with what, sorry, do you ask the goal? - He squints suspiciously. “They don’t let us go there.” There will be its own security.

To clarify the situation with the canceled ceremony, I called the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Maria Zakharova.

“Ask the representatives of the DPR,” she advised, promising “throw off the contacts”. - They are very active in the media space. We recognized them as independent states, as I can speak for them?

Contacts Maria Zakharova really “threw off”. It was a link to the website of the Foreign Ministry of the DPR. Two phones are indicated there. One at a time they answered me that "a non -existent number was being dialed." In another way, I found out that “in order to improve the quality, the conversation will be recorded,” I listened to music, then the connection turned off.

And the diplomats, apparently, could not answer calls: just at that time they had to go to their new embassy. Because they canceled on July 12, as it turned out in the evening, only a celebration. And so the embassy is now open: without any pump, without Minister Lavrov, in the presence of several invited journalists-the head of the Foreign Affairs of the DPR Natalya Nikanorova and the ambassador of the republic Olga Makeeva announced this right in the parking lot of the business center. They explained the celebrations, they had to transfer “because of the nightly shelling” of Donbass. Of course, the diplomats could not know about on June 30, when they announced the ceremony, nor on July 6, when they clarified the address for the guests.

DPR in the media space

“Activity in the media space” noted by Maria Zakharova, this is a kind tradition of the DPR. I appreciated it in the spring of 2014. A week remained before the commemorative referendum, and in the former building of the administration of the Donetsk region, which was occupied by “supporters of federalization” by that time (then they called Ukrainian separatists in the Donbass), work on media accreditation was boiled.

The “DPR press secretary” named Claudius accredited us. In the office where she waged this work, all the chairs were occupied by foreign journalists. It so happened that different languages ​​sounded, but not Russian. I talked with a Spanish colleague. Claudia, apparently, did not know that someone next to her understood Russian.

A large man in a balaclava and a machine gun entered the room. Claudia told him to go to the Finnodel. Actually, this word then hooked me then: I have to think, they already have a “Finnodel”. I listened and barely managed to turn on the recorder.

“They will give you one and a half thousand hryvnias,” the man instructed the man in Balaklava, and he obediently nodded. - Take it. Let him say that the car of the “Right Sector” ( prohibited in the Russian Federation , and t .) For the fact that she crossed the road with a St. George ribbon, deliberately knocked her out at the transition.

The man in Balaklava nodded again and left, and the turn for “accreditation” just came to me.

- And what does it mean - “Take a half thousand hryvnias to say”? -I asked Claudia, giving her a press card and defiantly putting the recorder on the table.

For a second, the woman froze with my documents in her hands.

“So, this,” she blurted out, recovering. - In Ukraine, there is no, as in Russia of free medicine? The girl got under the car. This is for her for treatment.

After a couple of hours, in the same building of journalists who went through “accreditation”, they were waiting for a press conference. A few days before, the “supporters of federalization” had a nuisance: they captured ... That is, they detained the next two cars with the seizure of property, but it turned out that representatives of the international Red Cross were traveling in them. The foreign press spoke a lot about this, the Red Cross expressed indignation. Well, it was necessary to somehow explain this awkwardness.

There were a lot of foreign press in Donetsk, then the press conferences of the former regional administration was filled with photo and television cameras. Three have already entered in balaclavs. They sat at the head of the long table with microphones, the machine guns were expressively laid in front of them. And they told them: those cars, it turns out, were only painted under the “red cross”. And the militants of the "Right Sector" rode in them to perform sabotage in the Donbass.

Speakers in Balaclavas reported that on the floor in the car they found “traces of Berets”, and in the computers of passengers - correspondence with plans for future sabotage.

It was, I recall, eight years ago. Events in the Donbass began recently, foreign journalists are not used to working in the new conditions, so out of habit they often believed what they told them at press conferences. I saw how foreign television cameras aimed at Balaklavs froze. The press conference was removed and recorded. As soon as we were allowed to ask questions, I raised my hand. And she asked if dear speakers could provide any evidence. At least a photo with the “traces of the Berets” in the car. Or, at worst, screenshots of the same correspondence ...

Further, foreign colleagues were already starting up. Questions fell. Someone asked if he would recognize the Red Cross that it was his car. It turned out - he admits, he recognized before. Later, I monitored the sites of Russian, English and German-speaking publications: no one except RIA Novosti wrote about how the militants of the “Right Sector” were masked.

From the building of the former administration of Donetsk, I left almost by the arm with American colleagues. They escorted me to the car. Leaving, I saw in the rear view mirror the black balaclava and the spine felt that my eyes from under it continued to look after me.