When Sir Roderic Lyne, Britain's new ambassador to Moscow, moves into his elegant residence on Sofiyskaya Naberezhnaya next month, the staff will have moved out ... settling into a multimillion dollar complex now nearing completion.

In the words of outgoing Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, showing reporters round the new building last week, it will be a stylish symbol of the best that contemporary Britain now generates in design, furniture and the visual arts. The price tag: $130.75 million.

Just as the current embassy looks out on the Kremlin, the new building, on Smolenskaya Naberezhnaya, lies across the road from the White House.

It stands on two-and-a-quarter acres of land and will accommodate a staff of 250, of which most are Russian.

The complex has 31 flats for employees, each with a magnificent view over the Moskva river. Facilities there include a swimming pool, medical center, kindergarten, and parking for 85 cars.

Pressure on space made the new building necessary as staff numbers grew to handle increasing contacts with the Russian Federation, press attache Mike Haddock explained.

"Sofiyskaya Naberezhnaya has its charm," he said. "It's an old and prestigious building, but the problem is in the working conditions. It became very crammed - some people are working in portakabins and even freight containers."

The visa section has been expanded, now able to process more than 100,000 applicants a year and issuing 90 percent of the documents in 24 hours.

From New Year's, the current building will be principally the ambassador's residence and an elegant venue for top-level receptions.

This, too, is set for a facelift. It's due for refurbishment in two years' time "to restore its former glory," Haddock said.

The building became Britain's embassy in the 1930s, home once to wealthy sugar merchant Pavel Kharitonenko. It retains much of its lavish beauty to this day.

But it was an eyesore for Josef Stalin, angry at looking out on the union jack every day from the Kremlin. The British authorities managed to keep it, though, despite overtures from the Russian government.

Construction of the new building began in 1997, undertaken as a joint venture between British contractors Taylor Woodrow and the Finnish subsidiary of the Swedish company Skanska.

Though most of the 800 building force were Russian employees, all the construction material came from the UK - no risks taken to repeat the United States' embarrassment when its new building on the Garden Ring was found to be bugged all over in the 1980s, winning it the nickname the "Giant Transmitter."

The Brits are cagey on this sensitive subject.

"The building was processed at every stage. We took every precaution," said attache Haddock.