Anton Nosik: “What is an exit visa and what it looked like in the USSR”
“But in the USSR - as in the modern Russian law enforcement system - every insignificant squiggle has a higher sacred meaning. The dichotomy of “ink vs typescript” in Soviet foreign passports is no exception. A passport was issued by hand at OVIR, suitable only for travel within the socialist camp - Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia. To visit all these countries, a Soviet person did not need an entry visa.