In 2004 during Vladimir Putin’s visit to France and the city of Cannes he met with one of the oldest Russian immigrants from the first wave, the last subject of Imperial Russia 82-year-old Andrei Shmeman, and the President of Russia presented him with a new Russian passport. “For many years I lived with the dissonance in my soul of feeling myself to be absolutely Russian while at the same time remaining without citizenship, a stateless person. And now I am happy that I have finally found a motherland,” Andrei Shmeman said then.
For his entire life Andrei Shmeman lived with a so-called Nansen’s passport – temporary identification papers that serve as a substitute for a passport for stateless people and refugees. The Nansen’s passport was adopted by the League of Nations in 1922, mainly for the purpose of providing documents for the 1.4 million people who had left Russia following the ascendancy of the communist government and the subsequent civil war.
And for all these years Shmeman had kept this status. His decision to stick to this principled choice made life in France rather complicated for Mr. Shmeman. He was automatically excluded from many social and other rights normally provided to residents of France. Without a local passport it was difficult to establish a professional career. For his entire life he worked as an administrator at a small art gallery and dedicated much effort and time to assisting Russian
