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Mikka, great article. Some first comments:

Currently, the article says that the passports (abroad and internal) were given by local offices of the respective ministries of the republics. This was not always the case. Ukrainian SSR, did have both ministries. I am pretty sure that the RSFSR had neither. Many republics probably had an MVD but not MID (I am not sure though).

Also, striking down of Propiska in Ukraine in 2001 is outside of the topic of this article, I think.

Also, are you sure that enserfement of rural population was in place until 1974? This needs checked, becasue according to the popular belief, the passports were given to peasants by Khrushchev and not by Brezhnev. Thanks, --Irpen 05:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, nice work—good coverage and nice level of detail. This should be nominated for WP:DYK. —Michael Z. 2005-11-23 05:42 Z

PS: zagranpassport is transliterated with both one and two S's—which is correct?

There should be one "s" in "zagranpasport". --Irpen 05:48, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Would like to add some clarification. Internal passport was and still is effectivly a National ID card. Just the name is pretty confusing - but it's historically so. Then, such internal passports were issued by MVD (Ministerstvo Vnutrennih Del - Internal Ministry) all over Soviet Union. Normally, if you reached age 16/25/45 you had to go to local police station and apply for it or for new photos to be inserted. THAT WAS THE ONLY WAY TO OBTAIN IT. IMHO the comment about Khrustchev/Brezhnev is correct. Also correct that republics didn't have their own MIDs!

Also some words on propiska. Propiska, while ideed a complicated issue, was "officialy" a registration of your residency. Many countries today require to do it (like Meldezettel in Germany/Austria, for example). What is true, is that it was very hard to obtain one in Moscow, for example, because there was no way you could buy a property at the time. Was no such legal clause in law. But you couldn't normally get a job, get into University or have some other privilegs, if you were not in posession of such registration. Today, while technically there is no "propiska", there is registration, that gives you priliveges. However obtainign it is much easier, since you're required either to have an own apartment or a relative who will register you to his/her address. While this procedure is still highly bureaucratic, it's not that hard as it used to be. By the way that is also what's happend in Ukraine - while "propiska" was declared unconstitutional, de facto it was simply renamed into "registration".

In all other terms the article looks correct. 84.0.202.205 21:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)George from Moscow[reply]

On 28 August 1974 the USSR Council of Ministers issued a new Statute of the Passport System in the USSR and new rules of propiska. The latter rules were in effect until 23 October 1995. This statute finally abolished the effective slavery of peasants. However the "blanket passportisation" was started only in 1976 and finished in 1981.
Is "slavery" really the appropriate term here? Kazak 08:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The concept of an 'internal passport' derives from the Tsarist era, however this is not mentioned in the article. In the Soviet era, the 'passports' seem to be more ID documents - but their exact function is not clarified here.--Jack Upland 11:12, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to remember that it was possible for a young Soviet citizens to choose the nationality "Soviet" at some point of time, if they wanted. I think this was even clebrated as a sign of enlightened citizenship, as in a future communist society (the eschatological paradise of communism) all national differences would have disappeared in the way of common Soviet identity. Does anyone have better information on this? --MPorciusCato 08:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your memory isn't quite right. While Soviet citizens did "select" their nationality when they received their internal passports at age 16, they didn't select nationality freely. The article accurately states what the options were. If both of their parents belonged to a single nationality -- for example, if they were both Ukrainian -- the child could only choose that nationality (Ukrainian in this case) on his or her passport. Only if the parents belonged to different nationalities from one another did the child have a choice: he or she could choose the nationality of either one of the parents. Special rules applied for orphans or children of unmarried mothers.~Mack2~ (talk) 23:19, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]