The German Goethe Cultural Center in Russia, known as the Goethe-Institut, has encountered the suspension of its accounts. This was told to The Insider by two sources knowledgeable about the matter. According to sources, those who paid for the courses are being refunded by banks.
“Exams were held at the Goethe-Institut on Thursday and Friday, and students wrote letters of guarantee that they would pay as soon as the opportunity arose,” said one of the interlocutors. According to him, the employees of the institute were “strictly forbidden to talk about it.”
“There are no details yet. We were informed that the head of the institute, together with the embassy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are considering the possibilities of solving the problem with the Goethe-Institut in Russia. No answers have been received from the Central Bank regarding this issue,” the second source said.
The Goethe-Institut is a cultural institution of the Federal Republic of Germany, with branches in many countries all around the world. In Russia, Goethe-Institut not only conducts German language courses, he is also accredited by the embassy to conduct Visa examinations. Goethe-Institut centers function in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk.
At the same time, According to the interlocutor of the edition, all employees of the institute continue to work. “Everyone is very depressed, the specific reason is unknown, but look at the statement of Maria Zakharova about the Russian House in Berlin,” the source noted.
On January 27, a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “If the situation around the Russian House of Science and Art in Berlin does not normalize, then retaliatory measures against the branches of the Goethe Institute in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk will not be long in coming,”
The Berlin prosecutor’s office began checking the Russia House, for compliance with the Law on Foreign Trade and Payments during the period of sanctions restrictions.
The Insider notes that Russia House has become one of the instruments of “hybrid warfare, ideological propaganda and political interference in German affairs.” It is the largest division of Rossotrudnichestvo and costs Russian taxpayers about $10 million a year, the newspaper writes.
The Russian House of Science and Art also paid for a trip to Russia for Maxim Shlund and his common-law wife Elena Kolbasnikova, who organized a rally in Cologne last September in support of the Kremlin. Pro-Russian activists carried banners demanding the lifting of sanctions against Moscow and an embargo on German arms supplies to Ukraine. And recently German prosecutors raid the home key leader of the pro-Russian protests in Germany, Elena Kolbasnikova.
Elena Kolbasnikova
As The Insider found out, Shlund turned out to be the previously convicted Russian Rostislav Teslyuk.
