A bizarre new facility is coming to Moscow, and you have an American separatist living in Russia to thank for it. After a long courtship between the “Yes California Independence Campaign” and the Kremlin-funded “Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia,” the world is getting its first-ever “Californian embassy.” Journalists have been invited to the grand opening, this Sunday.

Louis Marinelli, the American activist leading his state’s secessionist charge, is adamant that turning to Russia makes perfect sense. “California can’t become a country without recognition from other countries,” he tweeted earlier this week, referring to Russia, where he has lived with his Russian wife since September.

For more about Marinelli, read Leonid Ragozin's recent profile in Bloomberg.

Despite this weekend’s momentous diplomatic occasion, Moscow-bound Californians worrying about their passports needn’t fret.

Alexander Ionov, the president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, told the tabloid Life, “It’s not an official embassy, but a people’s embassy, between our nations.” He presented the grand opening as an opportunity for greater cultural and economic exchange, “despite the sanctions.” People in California want to show that they’re open to dialogue with Russia, Ionov explained.

Marinelli has been hunting for somewhere in Russia to host his “embassy” since at least mid-October, about a month after Ionov’s Kremlin-funded outfit helped him relocate to Yekaterinburg, where he earns money teaching English. In late September, Marinelli was one of two dozen other freedom fighters brought in from around the world to discuss the end of American unipolarity.

That convention, “The Dialogue of Nations: The Right of Peoples to Self-Determination and Building a Multipolar World,” wrapped up on Sept. 26 with a press conference at the headquarters of Rossiya Segodnya, Russia’s biggest state-run news outlet.