WASHINGTON — It was moving day at the Russian embassy and a small parade of dullish-blue vans lumbered along Massachusetts Avenue, loaded with antique furniture and vodka boxes packed with assorted papers and, perhaps, some old secrets.

After generations in a stately old building purchased by their Czarist predecessors near the heart of the capital, Russian diplomats last month relocated to the suburbs under the watchful eye of uniformed U.S. Secret Service police and neighbors such as Charlotte Jones.

"For many people in this city, there's still a Cold War being waged with embassies and their diplomats," said the Glover Park resident, standing outside the new embassy, nicknamed by locals "the Kremlin on the Potomac."

"I mean, look at the buildings, those terrible Soviet-looking things. They scar the neighborhood."

Such is the world of diplomatic Washington, where 168 foreign missions practice a curious brand of neighborhood diplomacy--not just with one another but with a sometimes-uneasy population of ever-watchful locals.

On tree-shaded streets and especially along Massachusetts Avenue--dubbed Embassy Row--diplomatic headquarters sit alongside homes whose owners are often miffed over where the diplomats park and how often they mow their lawns, and suspicious of just who passes through embassy doors.

While locals worry about diplomatic immunity run amok and millions in unpaid parking-ticket fines amassed by embassies, tourists flock past colorful foreign flags so abundant they need a guidebook to decipher them all.

Indeed, there's a topsy-turvy geography to Washington's diplomatic landscape. Embassies of feuding nations sit side-by-side or just blocks apart. Countries that couldn't be farther away on the world map are unlikely neighbors.

El Salvador is a block away from the former Yugoslavia. The Bolivians are next door to the British and across from the South Africans.

Here, the Austrians rub elbows with the Pakistanis. Cameroon is a neighbor to Venezuela. The Israelis are near their former mortal enemies the Egyptians and Jordanians--close enough to borrow a cup of sugar in a pinch. And the Zimbabweans--they're next door to the Washington School of Psychiatry.

Embassies of richer nations such as France, Japan and England have sprawling compounds where diplomats host lavish parties, film festivals and cultural exhibits for guests including local residents.