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Russia - Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs [MFA] consists of approximately 4,500 diplomats and 5,000 people in administrative and technical positions. Of these 9,500 MFA employees, about 3,000 are in Moscow and 6,500 overseas. The largest missions are in Washington, with 230 staff, and New York, with 180. The smallest are consulates in the Aland Islands in Finland, with one diplomat, and the Svalbard archipelago off the northern coast of Norway, with two diplomats.

Like Russia itself, the MFA is still attempting to come to terms with the vast societal changes that came with the end of the Soviet era. The Russian diplomatic corps of 4,500 is younger and includes more women than previously, but sexism remains very much in the open. The high number of applicants to the MFA is taken as a sign that being a diplomat remains prestigious despite the prospect of earning larger salaries elsewhere, but many see the Ministry as a way to a lucrative private sector job. The MFA takes pride in maintaining its emphasis on language ability, but an antiquated assignments process leaves some individuals with limited career options. Russian diplomats may face some of the same challenges as Americans, with concerns about postings, salaries, and the high cost of returning to the capital, but life within the MFA is qualitatively different than in the US State Department.

Dealing with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the bread and butter of any embassy, takes on peculiar characteristics in Moscow, where the congenial relationships developed with individual Russian diplomats are tempered by a hierarchical bureaucracy whose predilection to maintain control of its staff defines, and often impedes, the ability to work with the Government of Russia. Operating from a Stalinist-era landmark that appears destined to keep the MFA firmly rooted in the past, the ministry relies upon outdated communications technology that frustrates our ability to have direct contact with Russian diplomats who decline to provide their office phone numbers, rarely break the injunction against giving out cell phone numbers, and only occasionally use email.

The MFA discourages holding outside meetings with foreign diplomats and requires that staff be accompanied to social events. There are exceptions to these rules, and the level of access differs among MFA departments. The Middle East and North Africa Department is notorious within the diplomatic community for its inaccessibility, but even the typically hospitable relationship with the North America Department is hampered by the Russians' reluctance to ease communication.

Housed in an imposing Stalinist-era skyscraper, one of Moscow's famous Seven Sisters, this symbol of the apotheosis of the victorious, post-war Soviet Union was constructed from 1946 to 1953, reportedly with the labor of German POWs. Completed the same year as Stalin's death, and just before the Department's modern building was begun in 1957, the MFA was an anachronism from the time it opened. Still bedecked inside and out with the hammer and sickle and other communist regalia, the lobby includes a single physical testament to the passing of an era in the form of a modest monument to the Russian diplomats killed during the Stalinist purges.

American diplomats who complain about the sterility of the Department's Harry S. Truman Building are typically pleased by the MFA's ornate marble and gold leafed lobby, and wood paneled halls and offices. These grand surroundings belie the fact that Russian diplomats continue to work in conditions unchanged from the 1950s, with several staff members sharing open offices lined with worn wood desks without computers. The preponderance of male diplomats, with women in subordinate roles, and wafting cigarette smoke enhances the sense of having entered another era.

The MFA is reluctant to allow foreign diplomats unfettered communication with its staff, requiring that nearly all contacts be made through central phone numbers and prohibiting Russian diplomats from providing cell phone numbers. This situation reflects an extraordinarily hierarchical organizational structure that places a premium on rank and the need to control underlings, and also allows appropriate monitoring of communications by the security services.

While access to the MFA is relatively easy if one has an appointment, security is provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), which has officers at each entrance who monitor the comings and goings of foreign diplomats. Meetings with Russian diplomats take place in various places within the MFA, including reception areas, conference rooms, and private offices, suggesting that if conversations are being monitored the entire building is wired for sound. Holding discussions with foreign diplomats in the cafeteria or other common areas within the building is strictly forbidden in what appears to be an attempt to limit unapproved contacts and the chance that visitors might overhear conversations. Meeting Russian diplomats outside the MFA occurs rarely, except at official receptions. Russian diplomats must receive permission from their superiors before meeting foreign diplomats for lunch, and, if they wish to attend an informal, after hours social event hosted by a foreigner, must be accompanied by a second MFA colleague.

The difficulty in contacting Russian diplomats directly is among the greatest frustrations. Most do not provide direct phone numbers (many don't have business cards or refuse to provide them), giving only the number to the secretary for an entire department. In a few cases, Russians newly returned from posts abroad have given out direct phone numbers and offered to speak anytime, but had to withdraw these offers after being reprimanded for "violating protocol." When calling the central phone numbers provided, it is rare to be transferred to another phone line, and when speaking to someone directly they are often summoned from their office to the secretary's desk. Neither the secretaries nor others in the MFA have multiple phone lines or voice mail, and busy signals are a common occurrence. Secretaries rarely take messages, asking callers instead to call back, which requires making repeated stalker-like phone calls.

Communicating with Russian diplomats via email is virtually impossible, and contacts do not suggest reaching them in this manner as entire departments rely upon a general email address that is checked with little frequency. In some cases, diplomats may provide a personal email address that they use for official purposes, but their ability to check these accounts regularly is hampered by the fact that most desktop computers in the MFA do not have internet access, which is limited to a handful of general terminals. An internal, Lotus-based email system exists, but is not used by the many technology-averse Russians in the senior ranks who frown upon their junior staff relying upon the internet. Secretaries take dictation for the old guard, and typists continue clacking away.

There are always exceptions to the rules at the MFA, indicating that the organization does not operate monolithically and various offices have a distinctive character that appear to be set by their management:

• The North American Department (NA) is the main US point of contact for discussing bilateral political issues and arranging high-level meetings and phone calls for Washington principals, but is typically out of the loop on bilateral economic matters. While the Americans work well with the NA staff, they have been provided a single phone number for the entire department, which must be used even to reach the desk officer who fields most requests. Busy signals often frustrate the ability to respond to short-fuse taskings from Washington.
• The Middle East and North Africa Department (MENA) is notorious among foreign diplomats who must wait long periods to have appointment requests confirmed or simply ignored. While certain offices within the department are responsive to requests for meetings -- the Israel and Palestine desk is one -- others, such as the Libya desk, have made foreign diplomats wait for weeks to provide a low-ranking official who has little information to offer.
• In contrast to MENA, the chiefs of the Afghanistan, India, Iran, and Pakistan desks in the Second Asia Department are easy to reach by phone (some even give out their direct numbers) and typically available on short notice for meetings. Following important visits, the department has arranged general briefings for the diplomatic corps to avoid a parade of foreign diplomats into their offices for individual meetings.
• Certain staff in the Department for General European Cooperation, responsible for relations with the EU, OSCE, NATO, and the Council of Europe, are IT friendly and willing to talk on the phone, although getting an appointment can take time and may require submitting a list of questions in advance. A senior counselor on the OSCE desk said that he was required to attend a multiple-week training session on using the internet at the MFA's Institute for Diplomacy.
• The First Asia Department's China desk is approachable relative to other MFA offices, although the Korea desk has taken on the qualities of Pyongyang, proving elusive and even suspicious of third country diplomats.
• The Department of Security Affairs and Disarmament (DVBR in Russian) is particularly protocol conscious, taking care to pair us with equivalent or lower ranking diplomats, whereas in other departments MFA senior counselors may be the regular contacts of first and second secretaries. DVBR is often tight-lipped with information and its staff have come across as hostile when receiving our demarches.
• The relatively young, female, and technically savvy staff of the Department of New Threats and Challenges reflects its recent formation to deal with terrorism and transnational crime. The junior diplomats are among the most open to communication via email, provide direct phone and cell phone numbers, and share their frustrations with the MFA's outdated information technology. The department includes staff from DVBR responsible for civilian science and technology issues who were separated from that department at their own request.
• Befitting an office staffed with diplomats who served in New York or Geneva, the Department of International Organizations (IO) exudes a professionally convivial atmosphere, in which certain staff have freely provided cell phone numbers and personal email addresses, especially to those they may know from previous posts. Unfortunately, this does not necessarily translate into immediate, substantive answers to UN-related demarches, and IO can push responsibility on certain issues off to other departments. IO also covers environment, technology and health issues for the MFA.

As is the case with any diplomat working abroad, learning how to overcome the impediments inherent in the host country's bureaucracy is a crucial part of the job. In Moscow, this can often be accomplished by establishing personal relationships with those Russian diplomats who are most open to meeting and prove to be engaging interlocutors. There appears to be a quiet change going on within the MFA, with a willingness by a new generation to adopt information technology, although this still leaves the ministry decades behind the US and Europe and well behind the Russian public's use of the internet.

The large number of young diplomats showed that the MFA had rebounded from the disastrous 1990s, when a poor fiscal situation forced the Ministry to slash staffing levels, while low salaries led many diplomats to take jobs elsewhere. Despite the current increase in hiring, the MFA still felt the effects of its lean years, which had created a shortage of mid-level officers. As a result, Russian diplomacy continued to "rest on the shoulders" of professionals in their fifties.

The prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) is formally affiliated with the MFA and provides approximately two-thirds of the new diplomats hired. According to research by American Fulbright scholar Yelena Biberman, approximately 50-60 percent of international relations students at MGIMO plan to enter the MFA, although far fewer actually do. The school, which costs 7,000 Euros annually to attend, has become the leading university for those planning to enter the corporate or financial sectors, and has a reputation as the "hip" university attended by the children of the Russian elite. Many who intend to become diplomats find the school a great networking opportunity and opt to join the private sector instead.

Working in Moscow presents a unique set of challenges for Russian diplomats, requiring them to have a home in one of the most expensive cities in the world. While there are similarities to American FSOs fretting about losing their hardship and language differential by taking a position in the Department, Russian diplomats can look forward to returning to a Brezhnev-era apartment block and not a house in Fairfax. Astronomically high real estate prices mean that in most instances, they must already own an apartment in Moscow, a situation that helps ensure that the MFA remains dominated by Muscovites who had an apartment ceded to their families at the end of communism or who bought one in the 1990s. Diplomats from elsewhere in Russia are rare, as they cannot afford to rent or buy a home in the capital.