$OH[DQGHU6DOHQNR as it hinders access to medical assistance, social security, an old-age pension, and prevents them from possessing property and marrying. The Tatishvili case has special importance for the stateless people living in Russia. After the end of the Soviet Union (December 1991) and until 31 December 2000, individuals who had not obtained the citizenship of one of the newly independent States had had a special legal status in Russia, that of a “citizen of the former USSR”. Only after that date were they considered stateless persons. Almost 10 years before the Tatishvili case, on 2 February 1998, the Constitutional Court of Russia ruled, in particular, that “... the registration authorities are entitled only to certify the freely expressed will of a citizen in his or her choice of ... residence. For this reason, the registration system may not be permission-based and it shall not entail a restriction on the citizen’s constitutional right to choose his or her place of ... residence. Thus, the registration system in the sense which is compatible with the Russian Constitution is merely a means ... of counting people within the Russian Federation, ... is notice-based and reflects the fact of a citizen’s stay at a place of his or her temporary or permanent residence.” The Constitutional Court of Russia emphasised that, upon presentation of an identity document and a document confirming the person’s right to reside at the chosen address, the registration authority should have no discretion and should register the person concerned at the address indicated. The requirement to submit any additional document might lead to “paralysis of a citizen’s rights”. On those grounds, the Constitutional Court ruled that the registration authorities were not entitled to verify the authenticity of the submitted documents or their compliance with Russian laws and, accordingly, any such grounds for refusal were unconstitutional. The judgment of the Russian Constitutional Court and the case of Tatishvili v. Russia significantly influenced registration policy in Russia. Thus, if in the Soviet era registration (‘propiska’) was de facto based on the permission of the state authorities; in modern Russia the registration order is extremely liberal. This had led to so called ‘rubber-apartments’ (‘"31,&*)43 5)#"(,"4’)38 where hundreds of people are registered but do not actually reside there. One consequence of this had been the growth of a black market for registration in many Russian cities. Real estate owners are entitled to register as many people at their property as he or she wishes (of course, in exchange for illegal payments). Today, there are six thousand apartments that have a total of 260,000 people registered as living there.39 This liberalisation of the registration procedure in Russia caused difficulties in identifying the factual place of residence of Russian citizens as well as of foreign migrants. Due to very liberal rules of registration it is quite often almost impossible to find various kinds of offenders, such as absentee fathers, draft evaders, persistent defaulters etc. Thus, the registration policy in Russia has swung from one extreme to another. In Soviet times the movements and place of residence of people were rigidly controlled by the authorities (‘propiska system’). Today, the modern state adopts a policy of indifference regarding people’s actual place of residence, whether they are Russian citizens or foreigners. (Karpukhin 2011: 69; Barkhatova 2009). 3.3.3 The Russian Citizenship Deniers Today, there are still thousands of people entitled to Russian citizenship who still do not possess it. Whilst passport reform (the process of replacing old Soviet passports with new Russian passports) 38 Maxim Makarychev. ‘FMS will grasp with ‘rubber-apartments’. Russian gazette, 15 February 2012. http://www.rg.ru/2012/02/15/migraciya-site.html [V&;.1= V&;&+'<#*. TVA +&9:#+#/.2 . "+#91")*'=1 ;*&+/1+&=1". "?)..1@.;&2 3&9#/&" 15 4#*+&$2 2012 %.] 39 Tatiana Smol’yakova. ‘Ten years for illegal resident. Russia will harden the responsibility for law violation‘. Russian gazette, 3 February 2012. http://www.rg.ru/2012/02/03/romodanovskij.html [W&/62"& A=)$62;)*&. S#.2/6 $#/ 9& "#$#%&$&. ?)..12 8,#./)<1/ )/*#/./*#"")./6 9& "&+8>#"12 9&;)")-&/#$6./*&. "?)..1@.;&2 3&9#/&". N5696 )/ 3 4#*+&$2 2012 %.]  56&$6(8'2&,7&5‹$XWKRU