An agreement regarding the purchase by the Israel Government of Russian property in this country will shortly be signed in Moscow, it was reported here today.
According to the terms of the agreement, Israel will pay $4, 500, 000 over a two-year period, two-thirds of it in kind. The properties include Jerusalem’s 20-acre Russian compound, which houses the city’s courts and police headquarters; as well as property in Haifa, Nazareth, Afula and Tiberias. Property in Israel belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church is not included in the transaction.
Russia began acquiring the property in 1862, when Alexander II was Czar and Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. The purchases, for the most part, were registered in the name of the Czarist regime, to circumvent Ottoman restrictions on foreign private holdings in Palestine.
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