Belarus to abolish 'propiska' on January 1, 2008

Alexander Lukashenka on September 7 signed a decree ordering to replace the Soviet-times mandatory registration (propiska) with a new registration procedure, the president's press office said.
Under the new procedure, in order to register, a citizen must approach an official responsible for registration twice: to submit the documents necessary for registration and to pick up the passport with a residence registration stamp or a certificate on the location registration.

The new regulation abolishes the duty of a citizen to cancel his permanent registration before leaving for another residence. Under the decree, registration officials are obliged to report about a citizen's new residence to the previous registration agency. The latter not the citizen as before will cancel the previous registration.

The term of registration is defined as from 3 to 13 days.