Passportization

Passportization is defined as the mass conferral of citizenship to the population of a particular territory by distributing passports, generally within a relatively short period. This policy has been primarily used by Russian authorities who have provided easy access for persons born on the territory, sometimes holders of former Soviet passports, to apply for citizenship. In particular, the requirement of five years' residence on both Russian and Ukrainian territories is suspended for former citizens of the Soviet Union.

== Georgia == In Georgia this occurred in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where residents continued to be the citizens of Soviet Union and kept Soviet passports even a decade after the break-up of the Soviet Union. In 2002, a new Citizenship Law of Russia simplified acquisition of citizenship for any citizen of the Soviet Union, regardless current place of residence. In Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russian nationalist non-governmental organizations such as the Congress of Russian Communities of Abkhazia carried papers to a nearby Russian city for processing so that residents did not need to travel to obtain Russian citizenship. By June 25, 2002, approximately 150,000 Abkhazians had gained Russian citizenship in addition to the 50,000 who already possessed it, with the blessing of authorities in Sokhumi. The Georgian Foreign Ministry denounced the passport allocation as an “unprecedented illegal campaign”. On February 1, 2011, Soviet passports were no longer considered valid for crossing the Russian-Abkhaz border.