Russia* Alexander Salenko 1 Introduction The new century started with a change in Russian citizenship legislation. The citizenship law of 1991 (valid from the end of the Soviet Union throughout the whole post-Soviet period of the 1990s) was replaced in 2002 by Federal Law ! 62-FZ ‘About citizenship of the Russian Federation’ (in force from 1 July 2002). The baffling complexity of the previous legislation meant that many former Soviet citizens failed to achieve Russian citizenship during the post-perestroika period, which had serious consequences for millions under the new legislation. The new federal citizenship law 2002 considerably toughened the general rules on naturalisation in comparison to the first liberal citizenship law of 1991 (Henry 2009: 51). As a result, a number of legal problems arose concerning the integration of former citizens of the USSR who did not manage to obtain Russian citizenship according to the previous citizenship law. After 2002 many citizens of the former USSR (especially those living in the former Soviet republics) were considered as conventional foreigners by the authorities and were compelled to obtain Russian citizenship by the general process of naturalisation (opposite to the earlier simplified naturalisation procedure for former Soviet citizens). A whole new category of so-called 'captive illegal migrants' appeared ('"#$#%&$' ()"#*)$#' - 'nelegaly ponevole'), i.e. those former Soviet citizens who were declared to be foreigners in their native country. Since the entry into force of the new citizenship legislation in 2002 the naturalisation process has been complicated substantially. Stories about 'sufferings over citizenship from compatriots coming back to Russia have became well known (Grafova 2010). Stories about confiscation of passports from Russian citizens gained notoriety throughout Russia.1 The lack of a facilitated procedure for acquiring Russian citizenship is still an important problem. Human rights activists are continuing to demand the re-establishment of the facilitated naturalisation procedure (by registration) for all former Soviet citizens. However, in 2009 this order was abolished. In the sphere of modern Russian citizenship there are still a substantial amount of legal problems. In this research paper we attempt to consider only the most significant examples. Of course, it is impossible within a small research paper to present in detail a whole history of more than three centuries of Russian citizenship; only the most important historical stages will be examined in this paper. Considerable attention will be devoted to the Russian concept of nationality, ethnicity, subjecthood/allegiance and citizenship. The paper will also scrutinize the political ideas which substantially influence the citizenship and migratory policy of modern Russia. 2 Russia - Nationality & Citizenship While modern international law uses the term ‘nationality’ to refer to the legal bond between an individual and a sovereign state, Russian domestic law uses the term ‘citizenship’ (grazdanstvo %+&,-&"./*)). According to Russian legislation there is a striking difference between citizenship * Address for correspondence: alexander.salenko@gmail.com. The author would like to thank Jo Shaw, Rainer Bauböck, Nick Holdstock and unknown reviewers for useful comments and criticism on earlier drafts of this report. 1 Lidia Grafova. Beat on passport. Extrajudicial bureaucratic machinery of Russia deprives tens of thousands of people of citizenship. Russian gazette, N4972, 12.08.2009. http://www.rg.ru/2009/08/12/migraciya.html [01-12 3+&4)*&. 567/ () (&.()+/8. 5#9 .8-& 1 .$#-./*12 :7+);+&/1<#.;&2 =&>1"& ?)..11 $1>&#/ %+&,-&"./*& -#.2/;1 /'.2< <#$)*#;. ?)..1@.;&2 %&9#/& N4972 )/ 12 &*%8./& 2009 %.] 56&$6(8'2&,7&5‹$XWKRU