Expensive technology

Employees of the Federal Migration Service and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be the first to receive updated documents in 2006, and mass issuance will most likely begin in 2008. The desire to keep pace with the progressive West, where law enforcement agencies are actively introducing new technologies, threatens to hit the pockets of Russian citizens: they will have to pay about 1,000 rubles for a new passport. against the current 400. Only Kaliningrad residents are protected from passport costs: this week a law was passed on issuing them passports free of charge.