As the weekly magazine Itogi writes, passports of foreign countries, which thousands of Russians have managed to acquire at a reasonable price, may soon be outlawed.
Marina Antonovna Denikina, daughter of one of the leaders of the White movement, living in France, called the granting of Russian citizenship to her a pleasant surprise. Meanwhile, this joy may seem not too understandable to some of today's Russians: thousands of Russian citizens, where Madame Denikina had been striving for so many years, are happy to use any opportunity to open Offshore Companies in a quiet place and add citizenship of another state to their own. And some succeed. The number of lucky ones is growing at such an alarming rate that the State Duma has begun seriously discussing the possibility of introducing amendments to the Criminal Code so that Russians would be wary of acquiring a second (or even third) passport. The latest such proposal is to finally outlaw the practice of obtaining second citizenship, which, according to deputies, helps compatriots evade taxes and illegally export capital. For such "split personality" it is proposed to fine the guilty 800 minimum wages or imprison for up to two years.
Citizenship at a price
For now, under Russian laws, "split personality" is not punished in any way, although the second passport itself is not recognized as legal - except for cases provided for either by an international treaty on dual citizenship (and Russia has such a treaty only with Tajikistan), or by federal law (which is absent altogether). This is where the paradox lies: the concept of "dual citizenship" is by no means identical to "second citizenship". In the first case, it is about one state recognizing a citizen's obligations to another country: a holder of dual citizenship is given the right to choose for himself which country's army to serve in, where to pay taxes and use social assistance (this applies to Russian-Tajiks). For others, we can only talk about having a second passport, which does not entail termination of Russian citizenship, in other words, does not give the right to evade fulfilling obligations to Russia.
But despite this, Russians are still actively acquiring foreign citizenships, and there are plenty of offers to help become a citizen of some banana republic or even Switzerland.
The choice is indeed rich, designed for any wallet. The price range is from $7,000 to €500,000. It all depends on the stated goal: cheap are residence permits with the right to work for a year, which in many cases is used as a springboard for obtaining citizenship. A passport of a solid country - from the top twenty developed world powers - will cost several hundred thousand. And if we are talking about a state from the top ten or even the "G8", it is even more expensive.
So, for example, a residence permit for the Czech Republic (one year) will cost €6,000 (processing time 3-4 months), for Croatia - 8,000, for Slovakia - 12,000, for Belgium - 16,000, Germany will ask for the same 25,000 (provided that the applicant runs a "white" business at home with a turnover of at least €150,000-200,000 per month). The upper limit is Swiss prices: 35,000 (the same conditions, only the turnover bar is raised to a million euros). Obviously, this type of service finds its buyer among domestic mid-level businessmen, who find it more comfortable to run their business from Europe.
Citizenship can also be obtained through the system of permanent residence (PR), but this is a long path. Here the price depends not only on the country's image, but also on the qualities of the applicant himself: knowledge of a foreign language and the required profession. If the candidate has neither, then PR, for example, in Canada will cost him $20,000 per family (processing time - a year); if there is at least knowledge of English, the price drops to $4,500. Australian PR is slightly more expensive - $5,500 (for those who know a foreign language), but living in Chile will cost as much as $25,000.
Specialists in scarce professions can generally leave for permanent residence for free (the agency will receive its commission from the future employer). The problem is that the list of these professions changes more often than once every four years (the term of study at any university), so here you can only "catch the wave", but you won't be able to calculate it in advance. One way or another, the "citizenship through PR" option is again used by representatives of the middle class, who have seriously and for a long time decided to change the climate and the view from the window.
And finally, the most coveted option is "turnkey" citizenship. As the famous son of a Turkish subject would put it, it will be brought to you on a silver platter. But the payment matches the service: only wealthy people can afford to become citizens of a perfectly presentable state.
If we set aside fraudulent offers (they are distinguished by clearly low prices and an extremely wide range of countries), the main way for our compatriot to become a full-fledged inhabitant of some tropical paradise lies through the so-called economic citizenship. This practice is typical for countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Tonga, etc. Its essence is that a foreigner buys government shares, investing funds in the country's economy, and the state grants him citizenship. A similar path is also acceptable for developed countries, but only the price there is much higher, and there are more formalities.
One of the oldest Western firms providing this kind of service offers, say, citizenship of Grenada - about $200 thousand, Belize (formerly British Honduras) - in total about $150 thousand, the Dominican Republic - about $100 thousand, Austria (without permanent residence) - from $500 thousand, Ireland - $1.7 million, etc. In other words, if the cost of services is below $20 thousand, it is most likely a scam: dozens of sites are entangled on the World Wide Web, offering Singapore identity cards for $4 thousand, and Costa Rican citizenship, for example, for $12 thousand (according to official price lists, it is no lower than $40 thousand). However, offers of Argentine citizenship, which implies visa-free entry to most countries of the world, for $28 thousand per passport, or Mexican for $26 thousand, also cause a wary feeling.
Paradise pleasure
A little more detail about the scheme for acquiring citizenship. A typical example is citizenship of Dominica (an island in the Caribbean with an area of 749 square kilometers and a population of 85 thousand people). In addition to the charms of this "paradise pleasure", you will be described in detail the advantages of the offshore zone. In addition, the potential citizen is promised passports for family members (spouse and children) and no need to reside in the country (it will be enough to visit it only once - during the interview). Citizenship is processed within a month. But before that, the applicant must provide sponsorship assistance to the new homeland at the rate of $150 thousand for a family with one child or with two minors. He must also pay for his due diligence check ($3-6 thousand), agency services ($15 thousand, which will be refunded in case of refusal to grant citizenship, plus a non-refundable thousand "for troubles") and fees: application fee - $200, registration fee - $1,600 and stamps of $100 for each family member. Finally, the applicant provides all necessary documents (almost 20 pieces, including a tax declaration and a certificate from the Ministry of Internal Affairs about no criminal record) and passes an interview in English.
After all the troubles and expenses, he is promised visa-free entry to more than 100 countries, including the UK, Liechtenstein, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland. Where a visa is required (for example, to Schengen area countries), it can be obtained within a day. In addition, a generous citizen is awaited by a tax haven - no income tax, property tax, gift tax, inheritance tax, etc., protection of bank accounts, real estate and business, as well as complete confidentiality: "The Government of Dominica does not inform the authorities of your actual country of residence about your obtaining second citizenship."
At the same time, applicants are again explained that an offshore company is no different from an onshore (ordinary) one, and the pressure exerted on offshore companies around the world by developed countries (primarily the United States) has subsided. As a result, not only Dominica, but also the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands and others have retained all the sweetness of their attractiveness, the basis of which is confidentiality: information about the owner of a company can only be disclosed by a court decision.
Taking into account the client's needs, one can also find an offer on how to use the citizenship of an offshore paradise. Numerous firms like "Horns and Hooves" are put up for sale: with a full set of documentation, a nominal chairman Funt - he is called a "nominal director with a power of attorney in the name of the buyer" - paid state fees (for a year) and courier services. As a bonus - a nominal shareholder. The price of the package with a discount is $1,090. And starting from the second year, the purchase of "horns and hooves" will cost the Dominican Bender only 590 conventional units. Well, isn't it a paradise pleasure?
They Hit You in the Face, Not Your Passport
However, no one can guarantee freedom of movement to the newly minted Dominicans and the like. When a visa-free regime exists between countries, it does not mean that a person entering the country will be exempt from the formality of passport control. Even if a citizen with a "split personality" has no offenses on record, he may be denied entry to any country in the world if the passport and migration control officers have doubts about his reliability or the purpose of his visit. British border guards, for example, are particularly suspicious of atypical (in terms of appearance) representatives of British Commonwealth countries: the practice of camouflaged sale of citizenship by these countries is well known, so the "Commonwealth member" Ivanov should expect special interest in his person somewhere at Heathrow Airport. Moreover, in this case, the newly minted citizen may be checked against the Interpol computer and the relevant services of the Schengen area countries.
Maybe the purchaser of a second passport will be lucky - he will pass border control without problems. Such cases have happened: many compatriots can tell about how their flight passed without checks through a checkpoint in one of the European countries. But this is rather an exception than a rule.
When crossing the home border, a second passport (in the presence of citizenship) is completely useless, or even dangerous. You cannot leave the country with a passport, say, of the same Dominica and enter with a "red booklet": the border post computers will immediately show a discrepancy.
Of course, corrupt reality has already demonstrated that even citizens pursued by the law can leave the fatherland. Such a case, for example, was at Sheremetyevo-2, where a whole brigade of border guards worked, carrying out VIP passage across the border. According to the developed action plan, a fake foreign passport, into which a client's photo and several visas (for respectability) were pasted, was entered into the "Granitsa" computer database - allegedly the citizen had already crossed the borders of the homeland. And then the client was escorted right to the plane's steps. The price for such VIP service ranged from $3,500 to $10,000. But this operation was shut down by representatives of the Department for Economic Crimes of the Moscow City Internal Affairs Directorate and the FSB of Russia.
A second passport is also useless within one's own country. First, a Russian, as mentioned above, remains only a Russian, at least for all state bodies. And secondly (if you position yourself as a foreigner), in your home state there may often not even be representations of the countries whose citizenship you have acquired.
Of course, one can try to use another common special offer - to become an honorary consul of some state. But there are many obstacles on this path: first, even dwarf tropical "paradises" carefully check the candidacy of the applicant, not to mention European countries. Secondly, being just a reliable and law-abiding citizen is not enough - usually the title of honorary consul is given to well-known people.
You need not be a Turkmen...
The conclusion from all the above is simple: it is possible to slow down the process of the most capable and productive part of society acquiring second passports with the subsequent withdrawal of capital or departure for permanent residence only by adopting a corresponding law. At the same time, prohibitive measures are unlikely to lead to an increase in trust and love for the homeland. Rather, the opposite reaction should be expected. And it is almost impossible to track the acquisition by compatriots of citizenship of some island in the Caribbean Sea. At best, it will be possible to catch an offshore company.
Introducing the institution of dual citizenship is also not a way out. First, because offshore "paradises" exist precisely due to their closedness from the rest of the world, so it is unlikely that the governments of these countries will be eager to sign corresponding intergovernmental agreements. Secondly, the citizens themselves, despite any promises, will not legalize themselves as "doubles": too great is the distrust of the fatherland, and cases like Lebedev - Khodorkovsky only add to fears.
So it turns out that there is no dual citizenship - and that's good? No, this institution would just help solve another problem, no less important for Russia - the second citizenship of compatriots in the CIS countries. According to the first deputy chairman of the Duma committee on CIS affairs, Akhmed Bilalov, it is necessary to introduce the principle of dual citizenship, granting it to everyone, and not only to Tajiks or, as was promised, to Ukrainians.
After the collapse of the USSR, the idea of introducing this institution was supported by at least five or six states, including Russia. However, in practice Russia managed to conclude corresponding agreements only with Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The latter, by the way, ceased to exist when on April 22, 2003, Saparmurat Niyazov ordered Turkmens to choose which citizenship to keep. The citizens of Turkmenistan, including Russians, understood the hint. With allied Belarus, a similar agreement was never concluded. In relations with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, a system of simplified acquisition of citizenship when changing place of residence was in effect for a short time. And by the end of the 90s, Moscow also cooled to the institution of dual citizenship, having calculated how many times Russian social benefits exceed their analogues in other countries of the Commonwealth. The change in approaches led to the adoption in early 2002 of the law "On Citizenship of the Russian Federation", in which the concept of "dual citizenship" is practically reduced to nothing.
Migrant workers began to seep into the legal loophole that had formed by the thousands. The worked-out scheme is simple to the point of genius: renunciation of existing citizenship - obtaining Russian citizenship - return of the previous one. The first stage is necessary: to become a Russian, it is better to be a stateless person. But after acquiring Russian citizenship, few people care whether a second citizenship exists or not. In the republics of the Caucasus, for a long time they practiced another variation of this scheme: the imaginary loss of a Soviet passport, on the basis of which they received Russian citizenship, while simultaneously writing an application for the issuance of a new national one. The scheme failed as soon as Russian consulates began to require a certificate from local authorities about renunciation of citizenship.
However, the scale of corruption - a vice so widespread throughout the entire former USSR - does not allow us to speak of the complete disappearance of such practice. After all, it is no secret that a Russian passport can be bought - the price is from two thousand dollars. Attempts to reduce the number of departments and persons responsible for issuing passports have so far only led to an increase in price. It has not been possible to find out where the upper limit of the price range is - the demand for Russian passports within the borders of the Commonwealth is still high. Which cannot be said about the far abroad.
The precedent with Marina Antonovna Denikina is rather an exception to the rule. She belongs to the practically extinct breed of first-wave emigrants. The gentlemen officers and members of their families, who fled Russia after the defeat in the Civil War, persistently continued to consider themselves Russian subjects and refused citizenship of one or another new homeland. They became the main consumers of the so-called Nansen passports for citizens of the world - eternal refugees, recognized as such by civilized countries. However, already the second and subsequent generations of white emigrants inevitably naturalized in the countries that sheltered them.
So today only a handful of "Russians in exile" remain. And only they can obtain Russian citizenship without bureaucratic problems, while continuing to lead their usual emigrant lifestyle, enjoying belonging to their historical homeland from afar. For the millions of our former compatriots settled in the West, Russian legislation poses a tough choice: if you want to become Russians again, renounce your foreign citizenship. And, judging by recent initiatives to tighten the fight against the "split personality" of some citizens, the authorities are not going to abandon passport patriotism.