User Name: Mikhail Country of birth: Soviet Union (Georgia) Arrival in the Czech Republic: 1991 | Stateless since: 1991 | Current legal status: none Mikhail has lived in the Czech Republic since he was 18 years of age. He was born in Georgia with Ossetian origin. At the end of the 1980s, when he was 14 years old, he and his parents left Georgia for Russia to escape growing tensions concerning the autonomy of South Ossetia. Since then, he tried to study and work at the same time in order to support his family and his sick mother. However, due to his origin, he faced problems and eventually decided to leave. « As people [from Georgia - interviewer’s note] were leaving for Russia, the Russians didn´t like it. They tried to push me out of their country. I was a young boy, not even an adult then. I was assaulted by the police a few times and so I rather left saying “The whole USSR has gone crazy!” But I couldn’t have known I would have this problem of being left with no citizenship.” Mikhail arrived in the Czech Republic for work in 1991, before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For the first couple of years he stayed on the basis of a residence permit and worked for a Georgian national he knew from before. However, the man exploited him and forced him into slave labour. After several years, the validity of Mikhail’s Soviet passport expired. While he managed to escape slave labour, he could not regularise his residence status due to the lack of documents. He sought asylum in Germany but the German authorities returned him to the Czech Republic. He then applied for asylum in the Czech Republic. After several years, the procedure was discontinued. Mikhail was then ordered to depart. However, he was unable to do so. He could not obtain travel documents, either from the Georgian or the Russian embassy. Neither country considered him as a citizen. He has a birth certificate issued by Georgia but the embassy informed him that he is not recorded in Georgia and refuses to recognise him. Both countries have issued certificates proving that Mikhail is not their citizen. In 2014, he received a decision on administrative expulsion order without the possibility to return for one year, and another one for two years in 2016. He tried to explain during the expulsion proceedings that he was unable to depart because neither country considered him a citizen. He continues his efforts to communicate with the Russian and Georgian embassies but without any success. The police have issued him a travel identity card (a provisional document issued by the Czech authorities to allow for departure from the country). Still, Mikhail has nowhere to depart even with this document. Mikhail wants to go to Russia where he still has his parents who have received Russian citizenship after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. His mother is ill and Mikhail wants to take care of her before she passes away. This is not possible though. The Russian embassy rejected his visa application. Russia does not recognise the travel identity card that Mikhail received from the police. He could leave only if he had an Alien’s Passport but the Czech Republic issues this type of travel document solely to foreigners who have been granted permanent residence in the country. Mikhail is, thus, at a standstill. « In the 21st century, when people fly to Mars, I am here on the planet Earth and cannot get from a point A to a point B to see my parents and take care of them. That indifference, it’s hideous, nothing human. All humanity is skewed. When you say this to a normal person, he thinks and says, “Jesus, let’s make an exception, and we’ll send him there.” But there is no such exception, a person has become only a registration number. They look at the computer screen and say: “This number lacks this and that, so we won’t issue him anything.” People are treated as case files and numbers. Nothing else, no emotions.” In August 2018, Mikhail lodged an application in the statelessness determination procedure pursuant to Section 8 (d) of the Asylum Act. The MoI is yet to respond. In administrative decisions, he is referred to as a Georgian citizen. UNHCR Czech Republic 59