"Formally, the employees worked until January 31. Their contracts have not been renewed, and they are no longer British Council employees," the regional office's press secretary, Stanislav Smirnov, said.
Eighteen of the employees were Russian nationals, he added.
The office of the British government's cultural arm in Russia's second city closed on January 16 after defying demands to shut down by January 1 over alleged legal status irregularities and tax arrears.
The row further fueled diplomatic tensions between Moscow and London, and the clampdown on the cultural organization was widely linked to the diplomatic fallout following the murder of former Russian security officer Alexander Litvinenko in London in late 2006.
The council's Moscow office continues to operate.
Smirnov said the head of the St. Petersburg office, Stephen Kinnock, and his deputy, are still outside Russia. Furniture and books have been removed from the office on Nevsky Prospect, the city's central thoroughfare. The books have been placed in temporary storage.
As well as the Litvinenko affair and Moscow's refusal to extradite London's chief suspect in the murder, bilateral relations have soured over the U.K.'s refusal to hand over fugitive tycoon Boris Berezovsky and Chechen separatist emissary Akhmed Zakayev to Russia.
