The relations with London that were rather grey after the events around Litvinenko-Lugovoy, have deteriorated down to a color of wet asphalt. The chronic problem of the British Council (BC) has become aggravated after a melancholic statement of the Premier Brown’s retinue that they don’t care of the State Duma status of Mr. Lugovoy and he will be detained should he visit Europe… Meanwhile, instead of swordplay on international interpretation of the national parliamentary immunity Moscow focused on the similar disputing status of the British institution in Russia.

The legal aspect of the case is that the agreement of 1994 on functioning of the British Council in the Russian territory fails to stipulate the conditions of such functioning. A key subject remains unclear – whether the BC is a diplomatic mission or non-governmental humanitarian organization. Generally speaking, a status of foreign legal entities in many respects depends on the attitude to them of the host country. And this attitude, in turn, is determined by "the color" of interstate dialogue. It relates to the numerous information, cultural, educational centers, cooperation councils, Russian (and any other) Houses and other semiclubs-semiunits of diplomatic missions. All of them are designed to promote informal information and political influence of one country on another, and widely used by official bodies. Including those, which foreign activities are on the edge of the permitted and prohibited. Anyway the staff of the St-Petersburg Office of the British Council includes British citizens working for their Foreign Office. If needed, this statement may be detailed.

In our case, Britain itself confused the status of its council. May be, it has been done intentionally in order to alter the status depending on the situation. If the British Council is not a diplomatic mission, then why does it work in the premises of the General Consulate that is not admissible by international rules? If the British Council is affiliated in a diplomatic mission, then why is it involved in business activities, in particular, why did it open paid English Courses? The fact that the British bethought and paid taxes (20 million Rubles according to unofficial figures) does not change the particularity of the fact. And how shall we understand an almost conspirological warning of the British Council that its offices even being closed will continue their work “basing on partnership relations”. In is interesting, what is this work and with whom? The confrontational attitude of the British yet is more symptomatic. They not only fail to seek any compromise (and a compromise is not excluded due to symmetric interests of Moscow and London) but also objectively inspire ill-will of those Russians who undergo training under the BC programmes and thus are interested in this Council privately.

We have to repeat. Closing of the BC offices in Yekaterinburg and St.-Petersburg (the Moscow Office is still open) could stimulate at least specification of a BC legal status, and at best initiation of full-scale measures to withdraw the Russian-British relations out of the grey zone. The London’s affront: “We will work as usual!” slightly reminds almost forgotten “Vrangel Island ” incident of 1921. That time, exploiting the revolutionary events in Russia, representatives of the British Commonwealth (formally Icelanders with Canadian passports) arbitrarily landed on Russian Vrangel Island to conduct “Arctic surveys”. In 1924, they were expelled from there. But until now the precedent-based “depoliticization” of “the scientific and cultural exchange” destroys political and diplomatic principals of the current world order that seems more civilized than that in the period between the Verdun battle and Kerzon’s note. Anyway a notice stuck to the door of the Petersburg Office:” The BC office is temporary closed due to recent actions of the Russian authorities taken against it” sounds like a poster: “Everybody left for battlefield”. The situation evoked counter posters in front of the Yekaterinburg Office: ”Not all power to British Council!” In return, responding to the road accident with a chief of the Petersburg British Council Offiice, the UK General Consulate notified the world public that “Russian diplomats in London in 2007 were involved in 167 such accidents”.

It more looks like an example of former class antagonism that is recollected in the corridors of the building in the Smolenskaya Square as a joke. In the early 70-s of the last century Soviet Ambassador in London Smirnovsky was called to the Foreign Office to explain frequent cases of improper parking of Embassy cars. But our diplomat proposed to approach in future not Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USSR but his chief of garage on such issues. And for better understanding he warned that any steps taken against even the latter will make it necessary for British diplomats to use bicycles in the half of the world As that time it didn’t run to “the Bicycle Vendetta”, we have to pay attention to a fast-spoken assessment of the British Foreign Office: “Our relationships are not limited with current controversies relating to the British Council, and are more meaningful than those demonstrated by the Russian authorities towards the Council”.

According to the legends the ring of Tsar Solomon was decorated with a “dialectical” saying: “This too will pass”…