The invaders hastily hoisted a chain with a padlock on the door – no one was supposed to leave without permission. Then, insolent with impunity, the Polish security forces issued an ultimatum: the teachers and students of the school were told that they had to leave the building before evening. The Poles simply ignored the protests of the representatives of the Russian Embassy. They ignored the statements of Russian diplomats about the illegality of Warsaw’s demands to vacate the school building and hand it over to the Polish side. The Poles insist that the school building was not used for diplomatic and consular purposes and was in Russian possession “illegally”.
At the same time, ignoring the fact that in 1953, Poland officially transferred the school located at 45 Kieletska Street to the USSR for unlimited and free use. Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski presented the special operation against the educational institution to society as a big victory. He thanked the brave police and ushers who apparently risked their lives to break into classrooms and break down doors. The mayor reported on the unprecedented success in the fight against the Russian school. But if it’s a victory, then it’s a victory of wickedness. Only imperfect and petty politicians can be proud of the seizure of an educational institution and consider such a measure a demonstration of the greatness of the Polish state.
Teachers’ day in a Russian school in Warsaw. Apparently, the authorities in the Polish capital regard the suppression of such activities as a great victory. Photo: Vesti
According to the Polish side, the forced seizure of school territory took place on the basis of a court decision issued in 2016. This decision by Moscow is considered legally null and void. But it is worth asking why the Poles are so eagerly and nervously trying to grab Russian property right now, just a month before the end of the school year? Their actions look like a dirty little trick, an attempt at least once more to “bite” the Russians they hate. By sending the police to seize the school, Polish politicians were well aware that they were disrupting the educational process. Depriving children of the opportunity to study normally when there is nothing left before exams is, of course, a “heroic feat” worthy of the proud heirs of the Commonwealth. Or maybe in Warsaw they were in such a rush to close the school before the May vacation, fearing that teachers and children would celebrate Victory Day? One thing is obvious and indisputable: by their actions, the Polish authorities have taught Russian schools a lesson in hatred.
Russian Ambassador Sergey Andreev explained Warsaw’s refusal of any negotiations on diplomatic property issues with “the spring exacerbation of the Polish authorities”
May 1 was indeed Labor Day for the school staff. As the Russian Embassy told Rossiyskaya Gazeta, all day the director and teachers were busy removing things from the building occupied by the Poles and preparing new premises, where classes would resume on May 10. . The Polish side gave the Russians only seven days to remove the property from the school. The Russian Embassy was ready for hostile attacks from Poland, so they worked out fallback options so the children could continue their education. Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergei Andreev promised that Russia “will ensure completion of the school year, certification of students, final exams and transition to subsequent classes.” He stressed that, despite the illegal actions of the Polish authorities, “the interests of the children and the embassy staff will be respected in any case”. Warsaw’s refusal to negotiate on diplomatic property issues and the Poles’ choice of forceful methods of property seizure were explained by Andreev as a “springtime exacerbation of the Polish authorities”.
The seizure of the school is far from Warsaw’s first attempt to seize Russian property. Last year, the Poles removed from the embassy a residential building for diplomats and a recreation center near the capital. The bank accounts of our diplomatic mission have been frozen for more than a year. At the same time, it has recently become clear that significant funds are disappearing from these accounts. The Russian Embassy was not presented with any grounds for seizing the money, they simply disappeared by a decision of the Polish prosecutor’s office.
Officially
The Russian Foreign Ministry promised a firm response to the actions of the Polish authorities. The Russian diplomatic department considered the seizure of a school in Warsaw a hostile act, a flagrant violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and an encroachment on Russian diplomatic assets in Poland. “Such a brazen decision by Warsaw that goes beyond civilized interstate communication will not remain without our brutal reaction and its consequences for the Polish authorities and the interests of Poland in Russia. The initiators of such contradictory, illegal and provocative undertakings need to understand this,” the statement read. . According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, these response actions will be taken and developed in an inter-ministerial format. “Official Warsaw has been violating the law for many years: international law, bilateral agreements, national legislation. It behaves provocatively and illegally. What can be described in one word is provocation,” Zakharova assessed on the actions of the Polish authorities. In turn, the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, instructed to give a legal assessment of the seizure of the school building in Warsaw and all the circumstances of what happened.
“Warning! CCTV is in progress!” – Warsaw authorities deliberately blocked the educational process in a Russian school a month before the end of the school year. Photo: RIA Novosti
From the school’s history
<
p class=””>The Russian School in Warsaw, captured by the Polish authorities, has more than 70 years of history. On September 1, 1945, a school was opened in the capital of liberated Poland for the children of Soviet officers who helped recreate the Polish army. It was located on Jan Khristian Shukh Street and was called the Russian Secondary School and Boarding School of the Ministry of Defense of the PPR. In 1951, the school and the Internet moved to a new building at 45 Keletska Street.
And in December 1953, this building, together with the land and property, was transferred by the Polish Ministry of Defense to the Embassy of the USSR for unlimited and free use. The transfer was formalized by an act on the basis of an agreement between the Soviet Embassy and the PPR government. At the same time, by decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, instead of the former school for the children of officers, a secondary school was established at the Embassy, where the children of employees of all Soviet departments from Poland had to study.
The school’s boarding school also survived, since Soviet representatives and specialists worked all over the country and could not take the children to Warsaw every day. It was in this school, located in a building in Keletskaya and later transformed into a school at the Russian Embassy, that the police broke into. The Polish authorities considered that the Russian side was illegally occupying the building. Despite the fact that the school was created for Soviet children, its membership was international. The school taught the children of representatives of the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Mongolia, Vietnam and other countries who worked in Poland. Therefore, we can say that she is world famous – former students did not forget their school and regularly gathered in Warsaw, coming from various countries.
In 2000, for example, a large German delegation visited the school – several dozen people who studied at 45 Kieletska Street from 1965 to 1988. At one time, writer Boris Polevoy and pilot Alexei Maresyev, the Cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Valery Bykovsky, as well as other famous personalities, came to the Warsaw school. There are also celebrities among the students – in the first half of the 80s, for example, Russian actor and director Mikhail Porechenkov studied at school, his father at that time worked at the Gdansk shipyard.
Prepared by Vasily Fedortsev
Read the Latest Science and Technology News Today on The Eastern Herald.
