“Propiska”, a compulsory stamp with the residential address in a person’s passport, had been inherited by Ukrainians from the times of the Soviet Union. Finally, the Ukrainian government plans to cancel “propiska” and make the registration of place of residence declarative from April 2021, Finance.ua reported.
No more “propiska” in Ukraine
In the USSR propiska was the instrument of keeping citizens under the government’s control. There were strict rules as to who could get registered at a certain address, as the government was providing citizens with free apartments to live in but required obedience in exchange.
The apartments were basically given only to those who were employed. People who were eligible as pensioners or invalids could be waiting for their apartments for many years or even decades. In general, how fast one could get the free apartment would depend on the place of work.
Without an official place of registration aka “propiska” as determined by the stamp in a person’s passport, authorized by the Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs (police), one couldn’t get a job in a certain city, unless the enterprise got a special “quota” for non-residents of the city.
Desirable cities such as Moscow or St. Petersburg only had the most unpleasant factory jobs for those who didn’t reside locally. The quota was given to such factories because they couldn’t find locals who would work there.
Propiska kept people locked in the same location, as they could only get free medical help (and there were no private hospitals or clinics in the USSR) and schooling for kids according to their registered address.
Moving between cities was complicated, only students could move around quite freely while studying at a university. After the graduation, students would get assigned to a job vacancy within the USSR (could be in another republic of the Soviet Union), where they had to work for a minimum of 3 years. During this time the new specialist was usually given an apartment and therefore would stay in the same city for life.
As apartments were given faster to new specialists who were married, while singles had to reside for years in dormitories where 4-6 people could be sharing one small room, there definitely was an incentive to get hitched. Another incentive was the tax on childlessness, which was charged from all males without kids aged 20+ and married females. (Unmarried females were exempt from the childlessness tax.)
While living in the dormitory, people were getting a “temporary” propiska, which also would last only for as long as the person was employed at that particular enterprise. To get another job, they would have to also search for one that would give them propiska in the same city. And they would have to start their wait for a free apartment all over, as it was linked to the company employing them.
The whole system was designed to make people get education, uproot them to a new place where they would be given an apartment if married, and encourage a quick childbirth. Propiska was at the centre of this system.
Changing the status of registered address
Even though USSR had peacefully dissolved in 1991, some 30 years ago, it is only now that Ukraine is cancelling propiska as an instrument.
Instead of being a mandatory stamp in a person’s passport, the new system makes registered addresses declarative.
According to Mykhailo Fedorov, the Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, under the new system people would be able to change their place of residence via their smart phones without too much hassle.
Fedorov states that over one million of citizens of Ukraine have no official propiska, while 1 in 3 Ukrainians don’t live at their registered addresses. The reason for that in the complex rules as to who is eligible to be registered at a certain address, left from the Soviet times, as well as multiple legal implications it causes (such as the right to live there indefinitely under certain circumstances).
From April 2021 when the new system should replace the old requirement to have propiska, no companies or government institutions or departments would be able to demand people to have a certain propiska.
The new system of registered place of residence will work similarly to how it operates in western countries.
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