Regnum, Russia
Oct 26 2006
Georgian citizen ready to pay $3,000 for Azerbaijani passport
One of Georgian citizens, who is temporarily in Baku, is going to
receive passport of Azerbaijani citizen soon in order to return to
Moscow without problems. The citizen informed a Day.Az correspondent
he managed to settle the problem for $3,000 at a district police
station in Baku. However, he categorically refused to name the police
station, where he managed to receive the new passport.
The information was disproved at the Azerbaijani interior ministry.
It was stressed there that citizen of a foreign state should at first
reject citizenship of his native country in order to receive Azeri
citizenship. `As for illegal receiving of Azerbaijani Republic’s
citizenship, it is punished in complete accordance with severity of
law.’ That is why, as it was informed at the ministry, if such facts
are revealed, person, who received illegal passport and state
official assisted in that, will be severely punished.
It is worth stressing, in contrast to Georgia, Azerbaijan and Russia
have a visa-free regime for their citizens. Meanwhile, as it became
known to REGNUM from informed sources, in connection with aggravation
of Georgian-Russian relations and sanctions, introduced by Russian
side, Georgian citizens receive Armenian citizenship, changing, at
that, endings of their Georgian family names -dze and -shvili for
Armenian one -yan in order to enter legally into Russian territory
and to obtain more comfortable conditions of their stay there.
According to reliable sources, such camouflage costs $5,000. It is
worth stressing; there is no visa regime between Armenia and Russia,
too. Also, it became clear from talks with representatives of
Georgia’s Armenian community that tens of Georgianized Armenians hade
already changed their family names’ endings. Mainly, these processes
take place in Tbilisi and in Samtskhe-Javakheti region. According to
the source,"many people wish to get back Armenian family name;
however, many of them fear for inadequate actions of ethnic
Georgians."