The letter “e” in passports, place of birth, transliteration and similar problems are increasingly becoming the reason for the withdrawal of passports at the border.
The number of cases when border guards refuse Russian tourists to travel abroad and withdraw passports due to data errors is growing, such refusals can become massive, said Artur Muradyan, Vice President of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR). “At first there was a wave of errors, somewhere the gender was mixed up, somewhere spelling mistakes, then problems with names with the letter e began. We have all seen many more such cases than have reached the media, because both Semyonov and Fedora have been caught, and, strictly speaking, this problem is now avalanche—like,” he said at a press conference. The letter “e” in passports, the place of birth indicated in accordance with the Soviet names of settlements, the peculiarities of the typewritten transliteration pin and similar problems are increasingly becoming the reason for the withdrawal of passports at the border.Muradyan recalled that on December 1, 2023, amendments were adopted to the federal law on the procedure for leaving and entering Russia and the relevant regulations on the procedure for withdrawing foreign passports in case of their invalidity. According to these amendments, border guards, unlike the previous version of this law, are entitled to withdraw a passport on the spot according to eight criteria (shabby appearance, technical and spelling errors, etc.).”Everyone who was born before 1991 can expect problems. In particular, Sverdlovsk and Yekaterinburg, Samara and Kuibyshev, for example, are confused. We are currently at ATOR thinking about how to bring the problem to the federal border service, because the situation may take on an avalanche—like character,” he added.He stressed that arguing with the border guard at the airport at passport control is useless.”The situation may reach the point of absurdity when passports will be seized en masse. As a rule, tourists suffer, and not some intruders trying to cross the border,” Muradyan concluded.
Most likely, passports will be checked more carefully in the near future.Tourists are advised to check their passports (internal and foreign) more carefully. In case of doubt, contact the territorial authorities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They are obliged to eliminate technical errors on their own upon application, but the validity period of the passport will remain the same.
