Anna Lakatosh and Aladar Forkosh. Outskirts of Saint Petersburg. Winter 2019. travel restrictions. A whole series of problems related to civil status arose for people who were born, married, and had children in republics other than the ones in which they were located when the Soviet Union broke up. On top of this, many Roma, who even in Soviet times saw no real need for documents and were extremely lax about acquiring them, became stateless persons in the newly independent republics. One of these groups is the Hungarian-speaking Magyar Roma group, most of whom live in Zakarpattia Oblast (Transcarpathia), specifically in the cities of Beregovo, Vinogradov, and Mukachevo. This territory, which previously belonged to Hungary, was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and joined to Ukraine. In Soviet times, the majority of Transcarpathian Magyars were educated and worked in factories, plants, or traditional trades. The situation changed in the early 1990s, when many of them were not able to obtain Ukrainian citizenship following the breakup of the Soviet Union and the ensuing instability and confusion. This happened due to lack of awareness about the need to acquire a new citizenship, practical barriers (including fees), and discrimination in the citizenship application process. Romani people who had not registered their marriages or newborn children, who had lost their Soviet passports, or who had never applied for a Soviet passport in the first place also ended up as stateless people. 5