‘Western Values’ on Display: Moscow Blasts Norwegian Diplomat Over ‘I Hate Russians’ Rant
13:01 GMT 30.07.2022 (Updated: 14:44 GMT 30.07.2022)
© Photo : Telegram / Mash
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An employee from the Scandinavian nation’s Consulate General in Murmansk raised eyebrows online after telling staff at a hotel in the northern Russian port city that she “hates Russians” and that as a Scandinavian, she is used to “clean rooms.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has slammed a Norwegian Consulate General employee over “hateful” and “xenophobic” comments she recently made during a stopover at a Murmansk hotel.
On Saturday, Russian Telegram channel Mash posted a video of an agitated Norwegian diplomatic employee, identified as one Ms. Elisabeth Ellingsen, picking a fight with concierges at the Azimut Hotel in Murmansk over an apparent double booking mix-up and being given a room that was insufficiently clean.
“I only want to tell you one thing: it’s fine, we are leaving in a couple days…This is f*cking irritating, because the same thing happened with my colleague. She was removed from her room on the fourteenth floor for some other reason. You’re just f*cking up everything. This is a disgrace. Just give me another room and stop f*cking [around]. No, I’m not waiting one minute, it’s already late,” Ellingsen said.
“I hate Russians. Just give me a room. I’m just standing here until I get a room. How disgusting, how well is that room cleaned? You know I’m used to clean rooms. I’m from Scandinavia, not some Russian woman who’s just washing like this,” the diplomat added, gesturing a scrubbing motion. “It’s not clean. Can I even sleep in the bed? Oh my God, what the f*ck?” she asked.
“You know I think that this hotel is a disgrace, and you people in general [are] also a disgrace,” the diplomat added.
Commenting on the rant, which racked up over 400,000 views, Zakharova quipped that “Western values are becoming more and more impressive,” and characterized Ellingsen’s outburst as a bitter display of hateful nationalism.
“I will not quote her words in full, but will simply say that in her choice of vocabulary, this representative of a foreign state did not restrain herself, exposing her maliciousness,” Zakharova wrote. “At the moment, the Russian Foreign Ministry is working out options for responding to this outrageous act of hatred, nationalism and xenophobia, unless the Norwegian Foreign Ministry gets ahead of us – which would be the proper thing to do,” she added, in an apparent hint that Oslo should recall the bad-mannered diplomat.
Later in the day, a Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Russian media that it "deeply regrets" the behavior shown by its consulate worker in the video.
"The sentiments expressed in no way reflect Norwegian policy or Norwegian attitudes toward Russia and Russian people. The incident is being handled by the Ministry through the appropriate channels," the spokesperson said.
Norwegian-Russian relations remain icy amid the security crisis in Ukraine, as well as longstanding tensions over the militarization of the Svalbard Archipelago, back-and-forth espionage claims, and an economic dispute centered around Oslo’s refusal this spring to let Russian cargo ships into Svalbard. The two northern nations agreed to resolve the latter issue earlier this month.
The Norwegian Consulate General in Murmansk was "temporarily" closed down on July 1 by order of the kingdom's Foreign Ministry, with Oslo announcing that it would be reopened "when the situation permits."
