The so-called «Russian centers of science and culture» around the world serve as branches of Russian embassies, accessible to the general public. And at the same time the most important centers of operational work of Russian special services. There is no talk about science and culture as such. The Russian authorities were not interested in any cultural activity in itself — outside of political propaganda and recruitment of its participants and spectators — as they were not interested in the Soviet Union. This applies to concert activities, children’s dance and sports groups, theater studios, Russian language studies, and everything else.
Russian embassies in all countries are under more or less close surveillance by local counterintelligence agencies. All staff members’ exits and visitors’ arrivals are recorded. At any rate, they can be recorded.
There is no such surveillance of Russian houses. And it is impossible to control the visitors of numerous cultural events and concerts. This makes the Russian House an ideal place for contacts, meetings with agents, and recruitment. The more events there are, the harder it is to keep track of the participants.
The Soviet government started building Russian cultural centers around the world back in the 1960s. After Rossotrudnichestvo was established in 2008, Russian Houses turned into their representative offices, which play the role of independent cultural centers. According to official data, in 2024 Rossotrudnichestvo will be represented in 80 countries by 97 representative offices, including 73 Russian centers of science and culture in 62 countries. In all countries (for example, in Germany), all kinds of pseudo-public organizations of «compatriots» and «friends of Russia» are concentrated around Russian embassies and «Russian Houses».
In the language of Putin’s special services, the tasks of Rossotrudnichestvo and the Russian Centers of Science and Culture are described as follows: «The agency sees its task in further strengthening ties with compatriots permanently residing abroad, facilitating their activities to expand cultural, scientific and business cooperation with Russia.»
«Strengthening ties with compatriots» is a euphemism for recruiting and utilizing emigrants from the former Soviet Union.
The directors of the Russian Houses are usually diplomats with a fairly high rank of embassy counselor (corresponding roughly to the army rank of colonel) and with biographies somewhat unusual for career diplomats. In them, it is usually easy to find indications of a possible connection with intelligence services. This is called «diplomatic undercover work.»
Here is a typical example.
In 2015, the director of the Russian House in Nicosia was Yuri Zaitsev. From 2010-2013, he was a counselor at the embassy in Washington, D.C., and while holding a similar position there, he found himself on the pages of the American press. As «Voice of America» reported, «the popular American magazine Mother Jones published an article, the author of which reported that the head of the Russian Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., Yuri Zaitsev is involved in the recruitment of Americans, and the U.S. FBI is investigating the matter».
Zaitsev and the Russian Foreign Ministry indignantly denied the accusations. However, a year before the scandal, in September 2012 in Moscow at a meeting of Rossotrudnichestvo representatives in the presence of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Yuri Zaitsev said the following: «…we managed to organize trips here, to Moscow and to St. Petersburg, of 70 young political leaders, businessmen, journalists who visited Russia. The effect this has had in the United States of America has been tremendous. They have already created an electronic portal among themselves, they correspond with each other, and they conduct propaganda activities, that is, they work to help us. And in some cases, in some cities, non-governmental organizations called Russian cultural societies have been created. In particular, in the hinterland of the United States, in Memphis (you know that this is the birthplace of American jazz), there is a Russian flag flying on Main Street today over the Russian Cultural Center, created by Americans».
Yuri Zaitsev confirmed the future accusations against him. And it would be strange if it were otherwise. Zaytsev was simply fulfilling his official duty. Recruiting agents is the main task of all Russian Houses in the world. That’s what they were created for.
Zaytsev was expelled from the US and ended up in Cyprus the same year. In 2016 he was transferred to Vienna, where he held the same position — director of the Russian House — until 2018. What is interesting in this story is that only the U.S. counterintelligence (FBI) found it necessary to pay attention to Zaitsev’s work. Neither Cyprus nor Austria interfered with him.
Zaitsev has a typical biography. As he told in an interview on the occasion of his appointment in Vienna, he was born in 1954, graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Technology, and then had a meteoric Komsomol career. By 1986, it had taken him to the posts of president of the USSR Student Council and first deputy chairman of the USSR Committee of Youth Organizations. Both offices are classic Soviet imitations of public organizations. Already this activity could not but be related to the KGB. Most likely, Zaitsev became a KGB officer at the beginning of his Komsomol career, which predetermined it. Back in the Soviet Union, Zaitsev went to Japan under the program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a three-month course on macroeconomic management. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Zaitsev became one of the heads of the Moscow Central Stock Exchange. Then, in his own words, he «actively engaged in entrepreneurial activity in companies of the non-governmental sector», i.e. was introduced into private business. In 2009, as he says in an interview, «he was again invited to participate in international projects». This means service in intelligence abroad under the diplomatic cover of Rossotrudnichestvo.
An interesting nuance. In 2016, Zaitsev was interviewed by Irina Muchkina, chairwoman of the Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots of Austria, when he was appointed to Vienna. She noted that she and Zaitsev had been in contact 30 years ago when Muchkina worked as deputy general director of the Cosmos hotel complex, where the «most foreign» participants of the Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow lived, and Zaitsev was involved in the preparation of the festival. For people who know Soviet realities, this is irrefutable proof that both of them served in the KGB at that time. It is also a characteristic indication of the contingent from which the heads and members of the Coordination Councils of Russian Compatriots around the world are now recruited. Cyprus is no exception.
