Editing Internal passport (section)

===Soviet Union and its successors===
{{Main|Passport system in the Soviet Union|Propiska in the Soviet Union}}
[[Image:InternalPassport-RussianEmpire1910.jpg|360px|thumb|Pages of internal passport, issued in 1910 in [[Imperial Russia]]]]

The internal passport system of the [[Russian Empire]] was abandoned after the [[October Revolution]] in 1917, lifting most limitations upon internal movements of members of labouring classes in Soviet Russia. [[Employment Record Book|Labour booklets]] became the principal means of personal identification.

In 1932, the "passport regime" was reintroduced, its declared purpose to improve the registration of population and "relieve" major industrial cities and other sensitive localities of "hiding kulaks and dangerous political elements" and those "not engaged in labor of social usefulness". The "passportization" process developed gradually involving factories, large, medium, and small cities, settlements, and rural areas, and finally became universal by the mid-1970s.

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 the ''[[propiska in the Soviet Union|propiska]]'', a regulation designed to control the population's internal movement by binding a person to his or her permanent place of residence. For example, a valid ''propiska'' was necessary to receive higher education or medical treatment, although these services were not limited to the location registered. Besides marriage to a resident of another area, university education was the most popular way of circumventing one's ''propiska'' and residing elsewhere. Also, since only a minority of dwellings were privately owned, having a ''propiska'' at a certain address meant that one had the right to live there.

All residents were required by [[law]] to record their address in the document and to report any relevant changes to a local office of the [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia)|Ministry of Internal Affairs]]. {{Citation needed|date=April 2013}} For example, citizens needed to submit photographs of themselves for their passport, taken when they were issued the document at age 16, and again at ages 25 and 45. {{Citation needed|date=April 2013}}

Formally, passports were not necessary for traveling per se in late Soviet Union. Bus, train, and air tickets were sold without names, and identification documents were not necessary for boarding buses and trains (and only became necessary to board a plane in the mid-1970s) except when traveling to/from border-adjacent areas and controlled cities. Nevertheless, passports were necessary for temporary propiska in a number of situations such as checking in a hotel or renting a private dwelling (no marks were placed in the document).

Moreover, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Soviet internal passports, accompanied with a special leaflet, were valid for traveling to most [[Comecon]] countries and [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] as a member of a touristic group. The leaflet functioned as an equivalent of exit visa stamped in international passports; destination countries did not require entry visas at that time.

====The Russian Federation====
{{main|Internal passport of Russia}}
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:RussianPassport.JPG|thumb|right|Russian internal passport: front cover, first page, last page (usage terms)]] -->

In 1992, passports, or other photo identification documents, became necessary to board a train. Train tickets started to bear passenger names, allegedly as an effort to combat speculative reselling of the tickets.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union invoked the need to distinguish Russian citizens among the citizens of the former Soviet Union.

On 9 December 1992, special leaves were introduced which were affixed in Soviet passports, certifying that the bearer of the passport was a citizen of Russia. These leaves were optional unless travelling to the other former Soviet republics which continued to accept Soviet passports; for other occasions, other proofs of citizenship were accepted as well. Issuance of the leaves continued until the end of 2002.

On 8 July 1997, the current design of the Russian internal passport was introduced. Unlike the Soviet passports, which had three photo pages, the new passports have one. A passport is first issued at the age of 14 and then replaced upon at the ages of 20 and 45. The text in the passports is in [[Russian language|Russian]]. Passports issued in autonomous entities may, on the bearer's request, contain an additional leaf duplicating all data in one of the official local languages.

A passport exchange was begun; the deadline was initially set at end of 2001 but then prolonged several times and finally set at 30 June 2004. The government had first regulated that having failed to exchange one's passport would constitute a punishable violation. However, the Supreme Court ruled to the effect that citizens cannot be obliged to exchange their passports. The Soviet passports ceased to be valid as means of personal identification since mid-2004, but it is still legal (though barely practicable) to have one.

The ''[[propiska in the Soviet Union|propiska]]'' was formally abandoned soon after adoption of the current [[Constitution of Russia|Constitution]] in 1993, and replaced with [[Resident registration in Russia|Resident registration system]] which, in principle, was simply notification of one's place of residence.

Nevertheless, under the new regulations, permanent registration records are stamped in citizens' internal passports just as were ''propiska''s. That has led to the widespread misconception that registration was just a new name for the ''propiska''; many continue to call it a "''propiska''". The misconception is partly reinforced by the fact that the existing rules for registration make it an onerous process, dependent on the consent of landlords, which effectively prevents tenants of flats from registering.

Unlike with the ''propiska'', it is not an offense not to have registration unless one resides in a particular dwelling for more than 90 days. From a practical point of view, the long deadline makes it difficult to prove avoidance of residency registration and so to prosecute. ''De facto'' citizens have no restriction on where they reside (with the exception of [[closed city|closed cities]] or near borders). Still, many civil rights are dependent on registration, such as the right to vote.

In November 2010, the [[Federal Migration Service]] announced the possible cancellation of internal passports, which, if it were implemented, would be replaced by plastic ID cards or [[drivers' license]]s.<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/russia/2010/11/101118_russia_passports_cancellation.shtml {{lang|ru|Россия упрощает регистрацию и хочет отменить паспорта}}], BBC Russian, 18 ноября 2010</ref> In 2013, a plastic ID card, [[Universal electronic card]] was introduced, and any citizen had the right to reject it and retain an old-style internal passport. This card system was abandoned in January 2017.<ref>{{in lang|ru}} [http://www.uecard.ru/press/news/ao-uek-soobshchaet-o-zakrytii-proekta-po-vypusku-universalnykh-elektronnykh-kart/ АО «УЭК» сообщает о закрытии проекта по выпуску универсальных электронных карт] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170204005514/http://www.uecard.ru/press/news/ao-uek-soobshchaet-o-zakrytii-proekta-po-vypusku-universalnykh-elektronnykh-kart/ |date=2017-02-04 }}</ref>

====Belarus====
{{main|Belarusian passport}}
In Belarus, internal passports and passports for travelling abroad were merged into one kind of document in 1991. Passports are the primary means of identification for citizens of Belarus both in homeland and abroad. Belarusian citizens must have a passport after they have reached the age of 14; passports can also be issued to younger children for travelling abroad. Passports are valid for 10 years regardless of age.

Apart from visa pages, a considerable number of pages in Belarusian passports are designated for "internal" records, such as place of residence and marriage. Citizens had to obtain special stamp enabling the passport bearer to cross the border of the [[Union State]] before 2005 when the Constitutional Court ruled the practice not conforming to the Constitution.{{citation needed|reason=needs to cite court case|date=September 2014}}

Combination of primary identification document with international passport causes significant inconvenience to bearers who cannot certify their identity while their passports are processed for visas in embassies and consulates. A passport can also be easily invalidated by a careless foreign passport control official by placing a stamp in a reserved page.