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There's a scene, in "Red October", where the the boat's exec asks Ramius if he can travel between states in the US without passport...

My aunt used to travel in the Soviet Union in the early 80s and told me how backwards it looked like compared to Bulgaria. Back then Soviet citizens could travel easier to Bulgaria than other socialist countries and a lot of them came here for a vacation or to buy something which they couldnt find in the USSR. Aunt used to tell me how they were amazed when they saw that we had discotheques and that we sold Western music which was almost impossible to find in the Soviet Union....

A young man that I was friends with told me that in the Soviet Union there was a bribery system not very different than the one in New York. In New York you would attach a folded 50 or 100 dollar bill to the back of your driver's license with a paperclip. When you got stopped you gave the officer the license and didn't say anything. Most of the time, you got a warning and when they gave you back your license, the Paperclip wasn't holding money anymore. If the Officer asked what the money was doing attached to the license, you just said that's where you saved some back-up cash. Soviet citizens, of financial means, would clip a larger paper bill inside their passport for basically the same thing (and excuse, if questioned). Whatever they were doing wrong was ignored and when their 'papers' were handed back to them, it didn't contain money anymore. For as different as the people and systems of government were, people are very similar... Yall Take Care, John

"In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface" - Joseph Brodsky

And remember, the Cold War is like Ramen noodles, it doesn't take long before it becomes heated.

Here's a suggestion to The Cold War, to David and Nolan Karimov: since you did a presentation on the Soviet passport (a good one, I might add), why not do a presentation on the 5th row, or "pyataya grafa," of the Soviet passport, which indicated the citizens' nationality, or ethnicity, such as "Russian," "Ukrainian," "Jew," etc. This row in the passport caused many people, especially Jews, Germans, and other ethnicities, to face prejudice and discrimination. My parents, as Jews, experienced a lot of discrimination, and I myself experienced a lot of prejudice, growing up in the former USSR. It would be nice if you made a video on that.

A similar system exists in China nowadays. It also combines the thousand-year population management tradition. But in recent decades, due to the laborforce need from the big cities, especially due to a specified social event, which discussed in public, nowadays it's not that strict anymore. But it still exists and can be tight up anytime when the government feels necessary. Also, due to the difference between the Social warfare systems of different cities, it is still quite challenging for any citizen who tries to permanently move to another place to live in China. There is a joke among overseas Chinese migrants: The residential right in Shanghai is much more valuable than the citizenship of Australia. But still, I have chosen the latter. XD

Just to add to your good video: In the USSR every male was, and still is, required to get a stamp in the passport with the address of permanent residence and the military conscription status. If you wanted to permanently move to another place, you had to find somebody who wants to move to your place (“switch places”). You must also get a military registration before you get a new address in your internal passport. Same procedure was for a temporary move for over 90 days of stay (usually to go to college, etc.) After the fall of the USSR there were some changes: KGB became FSB - only name, “Propiska “ became “Registration” of your address, etc.

Ukraine still had internal passports when I was last there in 2014. A friend of mine came to the U.S. for 3 months and she had her internal passport with her. The internal passport was done away with in favor of an I.D. card similar looking to a U.S. or Canadian drivers license some time between 2016 & 2018.

Very informative. I have two Soviet Era Passports of mention: 1. Red leather Diplomatic passport printed in both RUSSIAN and FRENCH. Issued in 1946 to Chief of the Section Ministry of Industry and Construction RSS Ukraine. What is especially interesting is it was PRINTED in 1944. Printed in French which likely means June to Dec. D-day to The Battle of the Bulge. 1944 - The war is still going on and the Soviets are planning ahead. 2. Green vinyl "Certificate" "Passport" type Identification booklet with embossed State Seal. Issued to Charles Bvuma for Courses taken (January-June 1979) at Odessa Combined Military School Majoring in Commander of Infantry Battalion "The bearer of the Present Certificate enjoys the privilege for independent activity associated with the Major Subject. Signed by a Major-General reportedly of the GRU. Thus a Soviet trained interventionist in Africa. I purchased it from a "Weapons Brokerage" person who brought it back from Africa.

Internal passport is still a thing now, and penalties - or, rather, police racket - for failing to register remain a thing. It's only a few months that I finally gotten rid of mine after more than a decade in Germany. My great grandma forged a passport to move from the Chernozem - a breadbasket of Russia - all the way to Balkhash sea in Kazakhstan in order to save the family from... hunger. Moscow was another option, but she feared her forgery will be found out. But no one really looked - a worker living in fear is better than a worker living in slightly less fear when you make shock-industrialization. By the way, her cousin went to Moscow, became a metro builder, and no one checked her pass for the same reason. My grandma-in-law had a legal one, but with a twist. Her and neighboring villages in Pskov oblast were burnt down by retreating Germans, and only by luck not with the inhabitants that were already sealed in a barn. Now, with one of those villages burned school, and she, in her mid teens and skipping several years due to the occupation, had to attend one in a town. Because of that, she was given a passport, and that allowed her to then get to Leningrad, get education, and, well, have some pretty decent life for a Soviet citizen in Riga. Her older sister already graduated by the war's begin, therefore has gotten no passport, and thus had to stay at a dugout hut their perished father made of scrapped materials for several decades after the war.

On the cover of the video is a passport for traveling abroad, not a normal Soviet passport.

Now I see where the chinese got the idea.

It was real serfdom. I remember my grandma used to say "we worked for ticks in the notebook". She had three kids but no passport and maternity leave in time of stalin's rule was one(!) day. The day of stalin's death is still a kind of holiday for many Ukrainians.

I recalled checking in at a seaside hotel at the Romanian Black Sea resort of Mamaia in 1984 summer - the only hotel opened at the time due to poor upkeeping of the resort, and the Soviet tourist couple in front of me ( I saw their passports) were in their swimsuits during their check-ins! Illustration of how much they wanted to have a good time.

When you get to the 70s, I hope there's a Chess and the Soviet Union episode that looks at Bobby Fisher crushing them and what the Soviets did to poor Smyslov after he lost 0-6.

Though people think of the soviet union as its own entity, the passport system was really the soviets still trying to deal with the same issue that the czars government was dealing with, balancing modernity with keeping the serfs in the farm where they don't want to be.

The good ole, "Show me your papers," trope used in the movies about living in or escaping police states.

That clip of the secret city entrance is trippy

I wonder if this was the inspiration for the naming of "City 17" in Half Life 2.

16:54 In the USSR everybody was equal. It’s just that some were more equal than others.

You have to get permission to leave? If so then you are a Serf.

This part is overlooked by western Tankies: the peasants were literally slaves.

I should show this video to my mom. She was born and raised in Leningrad, went to university in Moscow, and worked in both Yalta and Sochy as a laboratory chemist.

Here in the states and Mexico, I'm half Mexican, people don't believe me that some countries require you to have a passport and visa even to travel 100 km to any direction from where you are located.

Just found this channel and absolutely loving it so far! I've been binging it all damn day today. 👍

I live in the US for a few years already, but I do still have a Propiska in my home town in Siberia. =) So technically, for the Russian government, I still live in Siberia, lol. In Russia propiska slowly but steadily loses its significance. Like on a recent trip to Russia I had to renew my driver’s license (expired after 10 years) and I was able to do it in Moscow without any problems, while 10 years ago it would not be possible, while 20 years ago you could get in trouble with the cops just by walking down a street in, say, Moscow without local propiska, if they stopped you.

In fact, Sergei does a couple of episodes of "The Ushanka Show" on both the Propiska System as well as what life was really like on the Collective Farm, seeing how he has intimate knowledge of the politics there because of his grandparents who were basically bound to one in Northern Ukraine.

The level of whataboutism and faulty comparaisons in this comment section is staggering.

I love the way he closes these videos, exhorting viewers to like and subscribe with Soviet govspeak similar to lingo used in the video. Good stuff!

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” -George Orwell

Nicely informative video. My compliments to all those who made this video a reality.

Im like getting the impression the Soviet Union was kinda an authoritarian dictatorship or something

In America you have American Express traveler's checks: "Don't leave home without it!" In Soviet Union we had Russian Express traveler's checks: "Don't leave home!"...

Wow o interesting!

Hi I lived through the Cold War (born 1957) and we heard stuff about the USSR all the time, the first time I heard of it was aged 12, when USSR suppressed the Prague uprising. Very scary to my eyes watching on TV. I am glad young people can watch these videos and learn just what soviet communism was like and how it still affects Russia and the ex soviet state's people today. Delia Morris.

Are you guys going to do a episode about soviet football, its a very interesting and unique story

The USSR was basically one big prison

Great channel. Thank you!

China still restricts movement due to them maintaining a one party, communist system. However, they mostly use it to deny government services like healthcare to its own population. For example, many workers illegally leave the countryside for work in the cities. However, they are restricted to only getting Healthcare in the countryside region that government says they are allowed to live in, so if they get sick (from covid for example), then they are unable to get treatment without paying out of pocket.

I'm loving these videos so much. I love hearing about the social history and everyday lives of the Soviets, it really gives a new perspective.

0:04 I have my own version of human rights

"Undesirable citizens" "1920s" ah, so that's where Germany got the idea

thanks for the great work! I pressed the like button to avoid deportation to Magadan.

“Propiska” (residence) is still the thing in Russia. Whats more to travel abroad you still need to apply for the international passport which you might not get if you are not in a good relations with your government. So basically you are not only being controlled internally where to live/travel but also if you allowed to leave the country.

Papers Please, real life.

ln Haiti, we had also the system of internal passports to travel inside the country during the 1860-1920 period.

Russia still has this system, I got a regular passport that I use to travel internationally. But then I also got an inner passport, which right now is used just like an ID. To be honest I don't hate it because it is only given to russian citizens who were born in russia. So I keep telling all of my friends that were born in Canada that I am more russian than them.

Australia currently

Coming soon to a country near you.

Of all the Soviet atrocities I've heard about over the years, for some reason this is the one that pains me to hear. Famine happens. You get a little skinnier, but you live. Harsh crackdowns can be avoided if you know how to read a room and get out before things get ugly. I've had to do that before, albeit I wasn't facing the government. Staying out of Gulag is a matter of keeping your mouth shut. I've had to do that too. But trapping people on a farm for their whole lives? It's worse than killing them. I'd rather face danger than despair. As long as you're free to move, you have the hope of a better tomorrow. When they take away your wheels, then despair really sets in. People can put up with a lot as long as they have hope, but in the country there's no hope. Miles of open land and nowhere to go.

Ah yes. Khrushchev reform once again xD

" Pasport grazhdanina" means "citizen's passport" ( "grazhdanin" in russian stands for "citizen" ). There were many forms of them. Every soviet citizen after he turned 16 years of age, received green, later - red colored " internal passport." After you had received permission to travel outside the Soviet Unoin, you had to make " foreign passport."

Thanks

police: show me your papers me: this is my papers have them police: no, no, not the toilet paper!

Does anyone know what videos to start with from the beginning I’d like to watch these in order?

“Forbidden cities” were also large cities like Moscow or Leningrad, and the only way to get the ‘propiska’ was to either marry a person from those cities OR to have a profession that was of vital importance for institutions in the ‘closed’ cities. My wife, who recently received her last internal passport has my name in it too. Yepp, spouses and children are also registered. However if we see the citizens’ passport as some kind of slavery, also regard it as an ID. Whatever documents you show will be of little value in Russia, but the passport is the THING. It can also be regarded as a population register. Here in Sweden a national register (handled by the tax authority) all people living in Sweden, but to me it appears that it is up to each and every Russian to keep track of his/her registers. Remember that communication between various departments on low to high level in State administration is very poor, so getting the passport will require visits to several bureaus to get all the documents that will eventually result in the passport (been there, done that ... my wife ran like a rabbit on steroids from office to office when her passport had expired some 15 years ago). Whataboutism: when travelling by train in Sweden, you buy the ticket in your name and may have to show, not only the ticket but your ID to the ticket collector.

Modern internal passports are fine as a concept, especially given how they are used as voter ID (that everyone has) in the post-Soviet countries. However, authoritarian regimes have been using passports in a similar way as the Soviets did: for example, in Russia you need a passport to travel between regions, your SIM card is tied to your passport and a few years back they (re)instituted a requirement to change your propiska if you move to live in a different region.

Спасибо

In other East Block countries there was ID looking like pasport with all your data and even your children's names itd. If you moved to another place you had to register that fact at the Interior Ministry or police (militia). For a passport you had to apply there.

See ushanka show. Kolchoznics ie peasants did not get internal passports till 1978. Also they were not payed wages for their work

What a dehumanising system! I should imagine that there was a lot of toadying to get one of these ‘passports’ in order to live in more desirable locations. This system went on for decades and must have held back the economy.

something similar exists in China called hukou, it's still in effect in the bigger cities like Beijing as you'll need a Beijing hukou to buy the house and access it's social amenities (education, healthcare) also if you need to renew ID, you'll need to go back to hometown now that China's population is in decline, it doesn't really make sense to have it anymore

Yes, it was new serfdom. The Soviet tyrants wanted to keep people contained, confined, unable to move around too much so they couldn't pick up those pesky ideas about thinking for themselves and so the state could force them to work where it wanted them to.

so in his attempt to modernize Russia, Peter the Great implemented a system that was already out of date by his day.

It's ironic that the thumbnail has jeans with a Soviet passport. Jeans were forbidden till maybe 85, and later just looked down upon and forbidden in schools and so forth.

Spoiler: serfdom.

Um, where is your bibliography?

The Propiska system for Soviet peasants was actually worse than the old serfdom of the pre-Alexander II Russian empire because there was an informal system set up which pretty much meant that your landlord had to give you at least the basic things that you needed to live as well as work with. The so-called 'workers & peasants' state was under no such illusion, especially when it came to peasants on the kolkhoz.

Can you please cite your sources? Thank you.

Дякую

Really interesting topic. Honestly hope you guys cover the internal migration of the USA, think it'd be a neat topic to cover. Especially seeing how segration was used to control where minorities of the US could go.

So the Soviets had their Area 51

Tyranny at its worst

oh I have one of these

Where can I find the sources for your videos?

Don't worry america totally won't do this with vaccine cards

We used to have freedom of movement in Canada now we have two classes of citizens vaccinated and unvaccinated two classes of citizens thanks Trudeau

Propiska system still exists in the Russian Federation. Not a bad idea with regard to American socialists...you want to make a mess in Seattle, you have to stay in the mess you made.

Its the same as covid passports

Ha... Good timing. Just as the world thinks about vaccine Passports and internal border controls between states and regions within countries due to coronavirus, like here in Australia. Good timing.

Vaccine passports for interstate travel.

Just seeing what's in the future for the USA

Will you be looking into famous historical artists, like Paul Robeson and the like?

What about gated communities? Do I need a passport to enter them Beard?

The Propisscuh

There's still internal passports in Russia, NFKRZ talked about his everyday carry in one of his videos and mentioned it.

"violations of a basic human right", oh come on, since when did this channel start taking side in the cold war instead of just reporting on it? Yeah the Soviet Union was so terrible for violating that right, while casually inoring immigration laws, living costs involved with moving to certain parts of your country etc.. which, by that definition, also constitute a violation of that right by that definition, this is ridiculous.

And now we have the vaccine passports. Great…

It sounds familiar to the vaccine passport system they're suggesting.

Russians still have an internal passport :/

Do they have something similar in today’s Russia, or was it completely abolished?

the soviet union is the country where there was the largest segregation in the world with a rigid caste system

Everyone who is not born in America need a ID, passport, visa and a corporate permission to stay. Only holidays and people who own enough money and don't need to work can stay

Do a Olympics one for ussr and usa

So you can't go see your relatives.

What was a yellow passport?

Is the russian word pasport a loanword from english?

PAPERS!............. Your papers are not in order.................