No visas

Russia recognized the independence of the South Ossetian passport

The Foreign Ministers of Russia and South Ossetia, Sergei Lavrov and Murat Dzhioev, signed an agreement yesterday on a visa-free regime for crossing the border. Georgia, which de jure continues to consider South Ossetia part of its territory, immediately declared the agreement illegal. In fact, no visas were needed to cross the Russian-South Ossetian border before. The only news was that the passport of South Ossetia, whose independence Russia has officially recognized since August 2008, was included in the list of documents taken into account by Russian officials - primarily border guards.

In fact, Georgia long before the war in August 2008 lost control over the territory of South Ossetia - in fact, never establishing it after the collapse of the USSR. North of the Greater Caucasus Range this area is Russian North Ossetia, and residents of both Ossetias are accustomed to the fact that the Russian border post at Upper Zaramag is generally a mere formality. Before the abolition of Soviet passports, a “sickle” booklet was enough to cross the checkpoint. After they finally expired, Russia carried out a massive distribution of its foreign passports in South Ossetia - so that almost all residents of the republic who traveled across the border received them. For Russian citizens, an ordinary internal passport was enough. No visas or any other marks about crossing the border were put in the passport. Georgia, which issues visas to Russian citizens when crossing the border, could only protest. Naturally, continuing the journey from Tskhinvali to Gori and further into Georgian territory without a visa would be risky.

In 2006, South Ossetia began distributing its own passports, which, naturally, were not recognized by anyone in the world. It could have been assumed that Russian recognition in 2008 would be followed by Russian recognition of South Ossetian passports, but this did not happen. The Russian border guards were not interested in the South Ossetian “crusts,” although last year they seemed to be able to be presented when entering a university and registering for a dormitory as part of the quota allocated to the Russian government for residents of the republics that suffered during the August 2008 war. Full recognition of passports was postponed. South Ossetian oppositionists, for example, explained this by the fact that, according to their data, several tens of thousands of South Ossetian passports simply “floated” to the disposal of criminals.

Yesterday, Sergei Lavrov and Murat Dzhioev finally signed an agreement that one can cross the Russian-South Ossetian border using a South Ossetian passport. True, this does not mean that right from February 1, 2010, a South Ossetian passport can be proudly presented to the border guard in Zaramag and he will immediately open the barrier. The agreement states that it will come into force after written notification of the parties about the conduct of the relevant domestic procedures. However, if we consider that Vladimir Putin ordered the preparation of a draft agreement on a visa-free regime just a month ago, right before the New Year, we can assume that the procedures will be carried out quickly.

So far it turns out that Abkhazia, which during the entire period after the war in August 2008 was either neck-and-neck with South Ossetia in terms of legal formalization of relations with the Russian Federation, or even ahead of it, has lagged somewhat behind in the issue of passport recognition. To cross the border on the Psou River, citizens of Abkhazia and Russia do not need visas, just as before. But Russian border guards are only interested in Russian passports. The other day, the Russian mission in Sukhumi (Russia and Abkhazia agreed on the deployment of missions on December 24 last year) explained that from the Russian point of view, Abkhaz national passports are not of sufficient quality. The problem may be resolved within a few months. Last summer, an Abkhaz passport was also sufficient for admission to Russian universities within the agreed quota.

Ivan SUKHOV