Translated material
Lithuanian passport
Irina Lagunina: In Lithuania, the 20th anniversary of the passport of an independent republic was celebrated. Over the years, a passport, which has been one of the attributes of statehood for any country, has undergone great changes: from a state where it was not difficult to fake to a high -European model of a high degree of protection and biometric data, which allows Lithuania to travel without visas and in the United States. Our correspondent in Vilnius Irina Peters says.
Irina Peters: After Lithuania entered the European Union eight years ago, and later entered the Schengen space, the attractiveness of the Lithuanian passport in the eyes of potential emigrants increased. Lithuanian citizenship, indeed, has a number of obvious advantages, it is not so easy to get it. There are two ways. Citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania is obtained by children born from Lithuania citizens, regardless of the place of birth. A stateless child born in Lithuania and permanently resides in the country also has the right to become a citizen, is not dependent on parents' citizenship. And the path of the second is durable. Lithuanian citizenship can be provided to a person who is constantly living here over the past ten years and has a legal source of income. Provided, if he passes an exam in the state language and the foundations of the Constitution. Persons who have married with citizens of the Republic of Lithuania may have a Lithuanian passport after five years of permanent residence in the country in a legal marriage.
It is worth recalling that in Lithuania - unlike Latvia and Estonia - there is no problem of so -called non -citizens. When Lithuania declared itself independent in 1990, it was decided that everyone, at that time permanently residents of any nationality in the republic, could have a Lithuanian passport.
Just 20 years has been working in the Vilnius Migration Service, stele Balcheunen.
Stela Balcheunen: the first passport was issued on April 2, 92 in the passport department of the city of Vilnius to the most ordinary person, he is now a pensioner. The Lithuanian state became and there were a lot of people who wanted to get more, because they left their old Soviet passports from the parliament during the January events of 91 years.
Irina Peters: After all, the passport had to be printed and allocated.
Stela Balcheunen: of course, but such a question was not - hard or expensive, the most important thing is that people wanted to get new Lithuanian passports, green.
Irina Peters: After Lithuania became a member of the European Union, the passports are not green, but as in all countries of the EU dark cherry, the cover.
Stela Balcheunen: since 2008, new passports, a high degree of protection - one of the conditions to make a visa -free regime with the United States.
Irina Peters: Since July 2009, the biometric data of Lithuania citizens began to be placed in the passport, and fingerprints are transferred electronically.
Stela Balcheunen: Yes. If a new document is ordered, fingerprints are required.
Irina Peters: The head of the migration service Gintaras Baguzhis comes into the conversation.
Gintaras Baguzhis: the state got to the feet, let's say, with all the attributes. So we feel according to the passport.
Irina Peters: Remember how the first passport was given to you?
Gintaras Baguzhis: Yes, he was just starting to work, there was a new feeling raised - they received a green passport, a different color, not like Soviet was. It felt that finally in his state was a sense of pride.
Irina Peters: Lithuanian citizenship and, accordingly, a passport can also receive a person of Lithuanian origin abroad. They, with the exception of some cases, should refuse the existing citizenship of another country. Many policies of Lithuania and emigrants have been promoting the idea of resolving dual citizenship all these years, since the number of citizens of Lithuania itself is reduced with mass emigration of Lithuanians to Western Europe.
The country's Prime Minister Andris Cubilyus negatively assesses the proposal to hold a referendum on this issue. And frank - why. “Double citizenship can be allowed to have people only of Lithuanian origin,” Kubilyus believes, “otherwise 200 thousand Russian -speaking citizens of Lithuania (in which about 3 million people now live) different nationalities will also want to obtain Russian citizenship. Then the Kremlin will get the opportunity to influence the situation in our country through these compatriots. ”
As for the security of the document from fakes, the previous passports of Lithuania with a green cover, according to experts, it was not difficult to fake, which the criminals did. For example, the scandalously known Russian fraud Sergey Mavrodi, against which the next business in Russia was opened, as it turned out, planned to flee from Moscow with a Lithuanian passport in which his photo was glued, and the name and surname were others, Lithuanian.
When did the underground grabbed the hand?
Gintaras Boguzhis: say, one citizen of Russia of Chechen origin, he was caught, found Lithuanian passports.
Irina Peters: The interlocutor had in mind the case when last year the Lithuanian border guards were detained by the son of the former President of Chechnya Johar Dudaev, 27-year-old Degi, who found seven fake Lithuanian passports in the car. By the way, his older brother has Lithuanian citizenship. The widow of the first president of the Chechen Republic Alla Dudaeva, their children and relatives used to live in Vilnius, now left for Georgia. So, after the detention of Degi Dudaev, fake passports of different countries and blanks for the manufacture of other documents were identified in the underground printing house of Kaunas.
According to experts, outwardly the fake of the current cherry color - the Lithuanian passport is convincing, but when trying to consider information using special devices, it gives itself.
What countries came across?
Gintaras Boguzhis: Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey.
Irina Peters: I am interested in the stele of Balcheunen how much it is worth a citizen to issue a Lithuanian passport.
Stela Balcheunen: a document must be from 16 years old, but many travel, a passport can be made at any age. If you make it in a month - 150 litas, an exception for pensioners, for children - half of the cost. Urgently, one working day costs 250. People lose a lot of documents a lot, several times.
Irina Peters: Can you suspect them that they use this passport badly?
Stela Balcunen: of course, you can put in a wallet, and when they lose, they lose everything.
Irina Peters: In Lithuania last year, 237.5 thousand passports were issued. About 200 people turned to the provision of citizenship.
Not all requests are satisfied. The press service of the President of the country explained: in most cases, the citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania is denied persons who had previously had a criminal record, as well as who did not live in the territory of Lithuania, determined by law. It is interesting that before making a decision on the provision of citizenship, President Dalya Grybauskaite - and this procedure is established on her initiative - meets each person who supplied the petition personally.
The law for the president provides for the possibility of providing Lithuania citizenship by exception. Nevertheless, Dalya Grybauskaite has never used such a right yet.
But 20 years ago, at the time of the restoration of independence of the Republic, Lithuanian citizenship, as an exception, received many residents of other countries, including Russia. These were mainly prominent figures of public life, culture, art, as well as athletes and entrepreneurs.
The famous pair of Maya Plisetskaya - Rodin Shchedrin in 1991 from the Russians received Lithuanian passports the first.
Rodion Shchedrin: My ties with Lithuania are long-standing, my connection with the Lithuanian musicians is close, she has never been violated for all these long years. We arrive, leave. In Lithuania we see the progress that occurs. This progress is quite obvious, the progressive movement, a lot has already been achieved.
Irina Peters: Plisetskaya and Shchedrin live in three houses: in Moscow, in Munich and in their Lithuanian estate on the shores of Lake Trakai.
Maya Plisetskaya: A wonderful life, we arranged for ourselves just a luxurious life.
Irina Peters: Your favorite lesson in Lithuania?
Maya Plisetskaya: Most likely nothing. I am not so used to it that I do nothing with pleasure. I read something, lay out the solitaires, watch the TV, really beat the bucks. I just live without tension. It is so difficult in our intense time, a tense globe. We are everywhere, we know in what tension people live. Here is the only place where you can not be nervous, breathe freely, walk freely, communicate with people.
Irina Peters: Another star of the Russian ballet - dancer Vladimir Vasiliev - also has a Lithuanian passport, which he supported in the most difficult years and the formation of a ballet troupe that he helped.
Vladimir Vasiliev: The time was very complicated, it was confusion. It was at this time that such a combination of circumstances is to help the ballet. I am generally far from politics, but there are situations where you are involuntarily ended up and must draw some conclusion. In this case, I, of course, was on the side of Lithuania, there is nothing to say. You know, I do not use the benefits that this passport gives, but the very consciousness that citizenship is given to you is very honorable. Not everyone is given, which means something was done. I live in Russia, I never left, in the most difficult times from Russia, I am not going to leave it. But for me it is very important, it is very valuable that I am a citizen of Lithuania. If there was such an opportunity, I would love to accept citizenship of all countries of the world.
Irina Peters: In the field of passport case - extremely serious and sometimes dangerous, when it comes to crimes, there are also curves. Gintaras of the Boguzhis of one of the modern funny features in the design of documents called the desire of citizens to look as young as possible in the photo.
Gintaras BOGOZHIS: They come to do documents for themselves, we remove. Immediately a photo appears on the screen. It happens that it is frightened: it turns out that he is not so young. Says: your quality is bad. The psychological aspect, a person always feels younger than in the photo. He asks to shoot 50-10 times, but still it turns out not so young.
Irina Peters: Probably women are very upset?
Gintaras of God: No, it does not depend on the gender.
Irina Peters: That is, people cannot come to terms with age?
Gintaras BOGOZHIS: Yes.
Irina Peters: After Lithuania entered the European Union eight years ago, and later entered the Schengen space, the attractiveness of the Lithuanian passport in the eyes of potential emigrants increased. Lithuanian citizenship, indeed, has a number of obvious advantages, it is not so easy to get it. There are two ways. Citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania is obtained by children born from Lithuania citizens, regardless of the place of birth. A stateless child born in Lithuania and permanently resides in the country also has the right to become a citizen, is not dependent on parents' citizenship. And the path of the second is durable. Lithuanian citizenship can be provided to a person who is constantly living here over the past ten years and has a legal source of income. Provided, if he passes an exam in the state language and the foundations of the Constitution. Persons who have married with citizens of the Republic of Lithuania may have a Lithuanian passport after five years of permanent residence in the country in a legal marriage.
It is worth recalling that in Lithuania - unlike Latvia and Estonia - there is no problem of so -called non -citizens. When Lithuania declared itself independent in 1990, it was decided that everyone, at that time permanently residents of any nationality in the republic, could have a Lithuanian passport.
Just 20 years has been working in the Vilnius Migration Service, stele Balcheunen.
Stela Balcheunen: the first passport was issued on April 2, 92 in the passport department of the city of Vilnius to the most ordinary person, he is now a pensioner. The Lithuanian state became and there were a lot of people who wanted to get more, because they left their old Soviet passports from the parliament during the January events of 91 years.
Irina Peters: After all, the passport had to be printed and allocated.
Stela Balcheunen: of course, but such a question was not - hard or expensive, the most important thing is that people wanted to get new Lithuanian passports, green.
Irina Peters: After Lithuania became a member of the European Union, the passports are not green, but as in all countries of the EU dark cherry, the cover.
Stela Balcheunen: since 2008, new passports, a high degree of protection - one of the conditions to make a visa -free regime with the United States.
Irina Peters: Since July 2009, the biometric data of Lithuania citizens began to be placed in the passport, and fingerprints are transferred electronically.
Stela Balcheunen: Yes. If a new document is ordered, fingerprints are required.
Irina Peters: The head of the migration service Gintaras Baguzhis comes into the conversation.
Gintaras Baguzhis: the state got to the feet, let's say, with all the attributes. So we feel according to the passport.
Irina Peters: Remember how the first passport was given to you?
Gintaras Baguzhis: Yes, he was just starting to work, there was a new feeling raised - they received a green passport, a different color, not like Soviet was. It felt that finally in his state was a sense of pride.
Irina Peters: Lithuanian citizenship and, accordingly, a passport can also receive a person of Lithuanian origin abroad. They, with the exception of some cases, should refuse the existing citizenship of another country. Many policies of Lithuania and emigrants have been promoting the idea of resolving dual citizenship all these years, since the number of citizens of Lithuania itself is reduced with mass emigration of Lithuanians to Western Europe.
The country's Prime Minister Andris Cubilyus negatively assesses the proposal to hold a referendum on this issue. And frank - why. “Double citizenship can be allowed to have people only of Lithuanian origin,” Kubilyus believes, “otherwise 200 thousand Russian -speaking citizens of Lithuania (in which about 3 million people now live) different nationalities will also want to obtain Russian citizenship. Then the Kremlin will get the opportunity to influence the situation in our country through these compatriots. ”
As for the security of the document from fakes, the previous passports of Lithuania with a green cover, according to experts, it was not difficult to fake, which the criminals did. For example, the scandalously known Russian fraud Sergey Mavrodi, against which the next business in Russia was opened, as it turned out, planned to flee from Moscow with a Lithuanian passport in which his photo was glued, and the name and surname were others, Lithuanian.
When did the underground grabbed the hand?
Gintaras Boguzhis: say, one citizen of Russia of Chechen origin, he was caught, found Lithuanian passports.
Irina Peters: The interlocutor had in mind the case when last year the Lithuanian border guards were detained by the son of the former President of Chechnya Johar Dudaev, 27-year-old Degi, who found seven fake Lithuanian passports in the car. By the way, his older brother has Lithuanian citizenship. The widow of the first president of the Chechen Republic Alla Dudaeva, their children and relatives used to live in Vilnius, now left for Georgia. So, after the detention of Degi Dudaev, fake passports of different countries and blanks for the manufacture of other documents were identified in the underground printing house of Kaunas.
According to experts, outwardly the fake of the current cherry color - the Lithuanian passport is convincing, but when trying to consider information using special devices, it gives itself.
What countries came across?
Gintaras Boguzhis: Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey.
Irina Peters: I am interested in the stele of Balcheunen how much it is worth a citizen to issue a Lithuanian passport.
Stela Balcheunen: a document must be from 16 years old, but many travel, a passport can be made at any age. If you make it in a month - 150 litas, an exception for pensioners, for children - half of the cost. Urgently, one working day costs 250. People lose a lot of documents a lot, several times.
Irina Peters: Can you suspect them that they use this passport badly?
Stela Balcunen: of course, you can put in a wallet, and when they lose, they lose everything.
Irina Peters: In Lithuania last year, 237.5 thousand passports were issued. About 200 people turned to the provision of citizenship.
Not all requests are satisfied. The press service of the President of the country explained: in most cases, the citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania is denied persons who had previously had a criminal record, as well as who did not live in the territory of Lithuania, determined by law. It is interesting that before making a decision on the provision of citizenship, President Dalya Grybauskaite - and this procedure is established on her initiative - meets each person who supplied the petition personally.
The law for the president provides for the possibility of providing Lithuania citizenship by exception. Nevertheless, Dalya Grybauskaite has never used such a right yet.
But 20 years ago, at the time of the restoration of independence of the Republic, Lithuanian citizenship, as an exception, received many residents of other countries, including Russia. These were mainly prominent figures of public life, culture, art, as well as athletes and entrepreneurs.
The famous pair of Maya Plisetskaya - Rodin Shchedrin in 1991 from the Russians received Lithuanian passports the first.
Rodion Shchedrin: My ties with Lithuania are long-standing, my connection with the Lithuanian musicians is close, she has never been violated for all these long years. We arrive, leave. In Lithuania we see the progress that occurs. This progress is quite obvious, the progressive movement, a lot has already been achieved.
Irina Peters: Plisetskaya and Shchedrin live in three houses: in Moscow, in Munich and in their Lithuanian estate on the shores of Lake Trakai.
Maya Plisetskaya: A wonderful life, we arranged for ourselves just a luxurious life.
Irina Peters: Your favorite lesson in Lithuania?
Maya Plisetskaya: Most likely nothing. I am not so used to it that I do nothing with pleasure. I read something, lay out the solitaires, watch the TV, really beat the bucks. I just live without tension. It is so difficult in our intense time, a tense globe. We are everywhere, we know in what tension people live. Here is the only place where you can not be nervous, breathe freely, walk freely, communicate with people.
Irina Peters: Another star of the Russian ballet - dancer Vladimir Vasiliev - also has a Lithuanian passport, which he supported in the most difficult years and the formation of a ballet troupe that he helped.
Vladimir Vasiliev: The time was very complicated, it was confusion. It was at this time that such a combination of circumstances is to help the ballet. I am generally far from politics, but there are situations where you are involuntarily ended up and must draw some conclusion. In this case, I, of course, was on the side of Lithuania, there is nothing to say. You know, I do not use the benefits that this passport gives, but the very consciousness that citizenship is given to you is very honorable. Not everyone is given, which means something was done. I live in Russia, I never left, in the most difficult times from Russia, I am not going to leave it. But for me it is very important, it is very valuable that I am a citizen of Lithuania. If there was such an opportunity, I would love to accept citizenship of all countries of the world.
Irina Peters: In the field of passport case - extremely serious and sometimes dangerous, when it comes to crimes, there are also curves. Gintaras of the Boguzhis of one of the modern funny features in the design of documents called the desire of citizens to look as young as possible in the photo.
Gintaras BOGOZHIS: They come to do documents for themselves, we remove. Immediately a photo appears on the screen. It happens that it is frightened: it turns out that he is not so young. Says: your quality is bad. The psychological aspect, a person always feels younger than in the photo. He asks to shoot 50-10 times, but still it turns out not so young.
Irina Peters: Probably women are very upset?
Gintaras of God: No, it does not depend on the gender.
Irina Peters: That is, people cannot come to terms with age?
Gintaras BOGOZHIS: Yes.