STANFORD /California/, December 2. /TASS/. Russian Ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov on Friday inspected the building of the Russian Consulate General in San Francisco and the residence of the Consul General from the outside. He said it at a meeting with Stanford University students.

Antonov said that prior to the trip to California he had issued a request only for entering the building of the Russian Consulate General but the U.S. authorities had dismissed it.

The ambassador indicated he did not see how he could possibly put the U.S. security at risk by entering a Russian Consulate General but U.S. officials did not give any answer to him.

Earlier on Friday, he did visit the area that had been fenced off.

"I examined my building, because it's a Russian building, it remains property of the Russian Federation," Antonov said. "There was an officer there and he went up to my group and asked us what we were doing there."

"Then I visited the territory around our building where my Consul General had lived, a beautiful building really," he went on. "I'm glad we have properties of this kind in San Francisco. And of course I'm dreaming of how to return our properties and to resume the operations of the Consulate General because I am sure this will be useful for the U.S. and Russia in an equal measure."

On September 2, the U.S. authorities closed down the Russian Consulate General in San Francisco and the Trade Mission in Washington, which are owned by the Russian government and covered by diplomatic immunity, and the New York branch of the Trade Mission, which Russia had been renting.

Moscow sized the U.S. Administration's motion as an overtly hostile act and urged the U.S. authorities to turn them back immediately.