When the Soviet Union Collapsed in 1991, What Happened at the Soviet Embassy in Washington D.C.?

Basically, nothing.

When examining history, we often view it solely in the dates and numbers, which skews the true sense of time. For example, many believe the Soviet Union fell apart overnight in a night of fire and destruction. But that isn't the case. It was a slow process that began with the election of Gorbachev, who didn't even want to dissolve the Soviet Union. However, his policies opened up the Soviet Union and along with other events led to many of the Soviet states splitting off and declaring independence in 1989 and 1990. The last few to go in 1991 happened during the Coup d'Etat, which is considered the day the Soviet Union fell. The Coup d'Etat became the Coup de Grace for the USSR. It was after the party establishment (mostly military) failed to regain control of the state that the Soviet States were headed for democracy.

But back to the main question about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1985, when Gorbachev became Secretary General, he replaced the previous Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union with Eduard Shevardnadze, a reformer. As a part of perestroika, Gorbachev placed his own man into office in order to implement his reforms in the USSR's MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). This entailed new buildings, staff requirements, staff, management, etc. The main goal of this was to create a more modern, efficient MFA that was plagued by corruption. However, this is where it becomes complicated. By 1990, Gorbachev knew the Party was loosing power and control at an astounding rate. Gorbachev went through 2 other Ministers before giving Shevardnadze the position again. Despite Gorbachev's attempts to keep the reformation process going, nothing could be done with the fall of the Soviet Union.

I need to backtrack a little here. As most here probably know, the Soviet Union wasn't a single nation (though it acted as such because it was mostly dominated by Russians). The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was multiple states, including Ukraine, Belarus, all the stans in Central Asia, and the Baltic States. Because of this, each state actually maintained its own Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In Russia, the MFA was led by Andrey Kozyrev. Kozyrev was an ambitious bureaucrat and Russian nationalist who wanted to challenge the Soviet MFA's foreign policy. Well, he didn't have to wait long for it. In the summer of '91, the MFA of the Russian Federation absorbed the MFA of the USSR.

And that's the short story of the Russian MFA from 1990 to 1992. Only 2000 personnel were relived due to budget shortfalls and about 3 dozen Soviet embassies were shut down.