The Soviet passport was an identity document issued pursuant to the laws of the

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

(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 An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

, 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.

History

The passport system of the Soviet Union underwent a number of transformations in the course of its history. In the late

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

citizens of age sixteen or older had to have an

internal passport An internal passport or a domestic passport is an identity document. Uses for internal passports have included restricting citizens of a subdivided state to employment in their own area (preventing their migration to richer cities or regions), cl ...

. In addition, a passport for travel abroad (, , 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 (, ), a diplomatic passport, and a sailor's passport. Internal passports were serviced by "passport offices" (, ) of local offices of the

MVD The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (MVD; russian: Министерство внутренних дел (МВД), ''Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del'') is the interior ministry of Russia. The MVD is responsible for law enfor ...

s of Soviet republics. Abroad passports were handled by the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The enti ...

of the corresponding Soviet republic. Internal passports were used in the

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 A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, p ...

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 A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many countries worldwide, al ...

, date and place of birth and

, 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 (, ), 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.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 (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. 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 An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministr ...

(e.g., by the age of forty-five, a person has to have three

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now creat ...

s of himself in the passport due to the effects of

aging Ageing ( BE) or aging ( AE) is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. In ...

, taken at the age of sixteen (when it is issued), twenty-five and forty-five). In

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

, these laws were abolished by its

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...

in 2001 on the grounds of unconstitutionality. In

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

, 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 terrorist attacks on that city as a justification for their continued use. File:USSR external passport 1929.jpg, USSR passport for travel abroad, year 1929 File:Паспорт СССР.jpg, Passport USSR, year 1974 – 1991 File:1990 USSR Passport.png, USSR passport for travel abroad, year 1990 File:Soviet Service Passport Cover.jpg, USSR service passport issued in 1984

Notes and references

External links

V.Popov, Passport System of Soviet Serfage, "New World" (), Issue 6, 1996

Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation -- "Historical Information" covers several centuries about passport-policy in Russia and Soviet Union -- in Russian
{{Passports Soviet internal politics Foreign relations of the Soviet Union

Identity documents of the Soviet Union

History

See also

Notes and references

External links