Propiska

Propiska (Russian: пропи́ска) was both a residency permit and a migration recording tool in the Russian Empire before 1917 and from the 1930s in the Soviet Union. For a state or third-party owned property propiska meant a person was included into contract of renting the place. It was documented in local police (militia) registers and certified with a stamp in internal passports. Residing anywhere without a permit was prohibited.

Depending upon the terms of residence, in the USSR, there was a difference between permanent (прописка по месту жительства or постоянная прописка) and temporary (временная прописка) propiskas. The third type, business propiska (служебная прописка,) was an intermediate type, when a person and family could live in an apartment built by an economic entity (factory, ministry) as long as the person worked for the owner of this housing (similar to inclusion of house rent into a labour contract). In the transition period to the market economy, the permanent propiska in municipal apartments was considered to be a reason for the emergence of private property rights during privatization (those who built housing at their own expense obtained a permanent propiska there by definition).