The Politics of Diplomatic Service Reform in Post-Soviet Russia

The USSR state coat of arms still hovers above Moscow's Smolensky Square and keeps a watchful eye on 19/23 Novinsky Boulevard, the site of the U.S. embassy in Moscow. The long walls of the imposing 27-story Gothic tower bearing the stern Soviet heraldry have by now seen six generations of Russia's elite and historically most-romanticized corps- the diplomats. But since the Soviet heyday, the luster of the diplomatic profession has faded. And so has the young generation's interest in diplomatic careers.