The Soviet passport was an identity document issued pursuant to the laws of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) for citizens of the USSR. For the general purposes of identity certification, Soviet passports contained such data as name, date of birth, gender, place of birth, ethnicity, and citizenship, as well as a photo of the passport holder. At different stages of development of the Soviet passport system, they could also contain information on place of work, social status (marriage, children), and other supporting information needed for those agencies and organizations to which the Soviet citizens used to appeal.
The passport system of the Soviet Union underwent a number of transformations in the course of its history. In the late Soviet Union citizens of age sixteen or older had to have an internal passport. In addition, a passport for travel abroad (заграничный паспорт, загранпаспорт, zagranpasport, often confusingly translated as "foreign passport") was required for travel abroad. There were several types of abroad passport: an ordinary one, known simply as "USSR zagranpasport", a civil service passport (служебный паспорт, sluzhebny pasport), a diplomatic passport, and a sailor's passport.
Internal passports were serviced by "passport offices" (паспортный стол, pasportny stol) of local offices of the MVDs of Soviet republics. Abroad passports were handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the corresponding Soviet republic.
Internal passports were used in the Soviet Union for identification of persons for various purposes. In particular, passports were used to control and monitor the place of residence by means of propiska. Officially, propiska was introduced for statistical reasons: since in the planned economy of the Soviet Union the distribution of goods and services was centralized, the overall distribution of population was to be monitored. For example, a valid propiska was necessary to receive higher education or be employed.
The passports recorded the following information: surname, first name and patronymic, date and place of birth and ethnicity,[1] family status, propiska, and record of military service. Sometimes the passport also had special notes, for example blood group.
As mentioned, the internal passports identified every bearer by ethnicity (национальность, natsional'nost'), e.g., Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Estonian, Jew, etc. When an individual applied for a passport at age 16, they had to select the ethnicity of one of their parents.[2]
The internal passports were written in the Russian language and the language of the republic where it was issued. The "green cover" internal passports and passports for travel abroad were written exclusively in the Russian language.
All residents were required by law to record their address on the document, and to report any changes to a local office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. For example, by the age of forty-five, a person has to have three photographs of himself in the passport – to account for the effects of aging – taken at the age of sixteen (when it is issued), twenty-five and forty-five. In Ukraine, these laws were abolished by its Constitutional Court in 2001 on the grounds of unconstitutionality. In Russia, similar cases have so far failed, and the system remains in place, although largely reduced. The system of internal passport registration remains strongly in place in Moscow, which uses the recent[when?] terrorist attacks on that city as a justification for their continued use. The Soviet passport is also recognised as a valid ID in Transnistria.[3]
↑ In Russian, word национальность, natsional'nost' means ethnicity. This is not equivalent to the interpretation of "nationality" as "citizenship" as it is sometimes rendered in English and other languages. In Russian there is a separate word for "citizenship": граҗданство, grazhdanstvo.
↑ According to the ethnic demographer V. I. Kozlov, the existence of this so-called "passport nationality," which was largely determined by birth, may have tended to fix the subjective national or ethnic identities of Soviet citizens: V. I. Kozlov, in Динамика численности народов (Dynamics in the Number of Peoples) (Moscow: Nauka, 1969). However, there is a lot of evidence of shifting of subjective nationality, for example as it was reflected in the Soviet censuses, despite the existence of a passport nationality. See, for example, B. A. Anderson and B. D. Silver, "Estimating Russification of Ethnic Identity Among Non-Russians in the USSR," Demography 20 (November 1983): 461–489.
Nationality is the status of belonging to a particular nation, defined as a group of people organized in one country, under one legal jurisdiction, or as a group of people who are united on the basis of culture.
An internal or domestic passport is an identity document. Uses for internal passports have included restricting citizens of a subdivided state to employment in their own area, clearly recording the ethnicity of citizens to enforce segregation or prevent passing, and controlling access to sensitive sites or closed cities.
A propiska was both a written residency permit and a migration-recording tool, used in the Russian Empire before 1917 and in the Soviet Union from the 1930s.
Freedom of movement, mobility rights, or the right to travel is a human rights concept encompassing the right of individuals to travel from place to place within the territory of a country, and to leave the country and return to it. The right includes not only visiting places, but changing the place where the individual resides or works.
National delimitation in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the process of specifying well-defined national territorial units from the ethnic diversity of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its subregions.
Polish nationality law is based primarily on the principle of jus sanguinis. Children born to at least one Polish parent acquire Polish citizenship irrespective of place of birth. Besides other things, Polish citizenship entitles the person to a Polish passport.
A Belarusian passport is issued to citizens of Belarus and is used for both external and internal travel. Unlike Russia, there are no internal passports in Belarus. Passports are issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Belarus and by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to citizens who live abroad.
Belarusian nationality law regulates the manner in which one acquires, or is eligible to acquire, Belarusian nationality, citizenship. Belarusian citizenship is membership in the political community of the Republic of Belarus.
The Russian passport is a booklet issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs to Russian citizens for international travel. This external Russian passport is distinct from the internal Russian passport, which is a mandatory identity document for travel and identification purposes within Russia. Russian citizens must use their Russian passports when leaving or entering Russia, unless traveling to/from a country where the Russian internal ID is recognised as a valid travel document.
The Montenegrin passport is the primary document for international travel issued by Montenegro.
The Ukrainian passport is a document issued for nationals of Ukraine as proof of Ukrainian citizenship. The country issues international passports that are used for travel abroad. Until 2016, citizens were issued a soft booklet internal passport as their primary domestic identification document; the booklets were replaced by an identity card with existing passports remaining valid. Electronic passports are available to citizens through the government smartphone application Diia.
An Estonian passport is an international travel document issued to citizens of Estonia, and may also serve as proof of Estonian citizenship. Besides enabling the bearer to travel internationally and serving as indication of Estonian citizenship, the passport facilitates the process of securing assistance from Estonian consular officials abroad or other European Union member states in case an Estonian consular is absent, if needed. If an Estonian citizen wishes to receive an identity document, especially an Estonian passport, somewhere other than the foreign representation of the Republic of Estonia, then the bearer of the Estonian citizenship staying abroad could receive the travel documents in embassies of any EU country worldwide by paying 50 Euro. Many countries require passport validity of no less than 6 months and one or two blank pages.
Kazakhstani passports are issued to citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan to facilitate international travel. Within the Republic of Kazakhstan citizens are required to use internal identification card which can also be used for travel to the Russian Federation, Kyrgyzstan and Albania. The Kazakh Ministry of Justice started issuing biometric passports on 5 January 2009.
A Bulgarian passport is an international travel document issued to nationals of Bulgaria, and may also serve as proof of Bulgarian citizenship. Besides enabling the bearer to travel internationally and serving as indication of Bulgarian citizenship, the passport facilitates the process of securing assistance from Bulgarian consular officials abroad or other European Union member states in case a Bulgarian consular is absent, if needed.
Estonian citizenship law details the conditions by which a person is a citizen of Estonia. The primary law currently governing these requirements is the Citizenship Act, which came into force on 1 April 1995.
Ukrainian nationality law details the conditions by which a person holds nationality of Ukraine. The primary law governing these requirements is the law "On Citizenship of Ukraine", which came into force on 1 March 2001.
Russian citizenship law details the conditions by which a person holds citizenship of Russia. The primary law governing citizenship requirements is the federal law "On Citizenship of the Russian Federation", which came into force on 1 July 2002.
The passport system of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was an organisational framework of the single national civil registration system based upon identification documents, and managed in accordance with the laws by ministries and other governmental bodies authorised by the Constitution of the USSR in the sphere of internal affairs.
The Internal Russian passport is a mandatory identity document for all Russian citizens residing in Russia who are aged 14 or over. The Internal Russian passport is an internal passport used for travel and identification purposes in Russia, which is distinct from the International Russian passport used by Russian citizens to travel in and out of Russian borders.
The Ukrainian identity card or passport of a citizen of Ukraine is an identity document issued to citizens of Ukraine. Every Ukrainian citizen aged 14 or above that permanently resides in Ukraine must possess an identity card issued by the State Migration Service. Ukrainian identity cards can be used as a travel document to enter Ukraine, Georgia, Ireland, Moldova, Russia and Turkey.
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Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR 
