The man at the center of this legal anomaly was , a Soviet trade representative who died suddenly in Manhattan. His case set a precedent that no one in the State Department had ever considered: What happens to a Communist official’s inheritance when it’s sitting in a capitalist bank? The Deceased: A Man of the State Vladimir Kirillin wasn't a defector or a dissident. He was a loyal Soviet bureaucrat working for Amtorg Trading Corporation, the USSR’s purchasing agency in New York. In the 1970s, détente was thawing relations, allowing more Soviet officials to live and work in the U.S. than ever before.
The Manhattan Surrogate’s Court disagreed. The judge ruled that by living and working in New York—even as a foreign agent—Kirillin was subject to New York estate laws. first of a soviet citizen to undergo probate
Fast forward to today, and this precedent is suddenly relevant again. With the recent freezing of Russian oligarch assets following sanctions over Ukraine, the question of "probate for Russian nationals" has returned. If a sanctioned Russian billionaire dies while living in London or New York, their heirs will face the exact same wall Kirillin’s family did in 1978—except now, the stakes are in the billions, not thousands. The man at the center of this legal
