First Of A Soviet Citizen To Undergo Probate Official

The first Soviet citizen to undergo probate proved a simple truth: Death is the one international equalizer. No matter which side of the Iron Curtain you lived on, you still can’t take it with you—and Uncle Sam still wants his estate tax. Have you ever dealt with an international probate case? Or do you have a Cold War family story involving frozen assets? Let me know in the comments.

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

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 first Soviet citizen to undergo probate proved