Propiska in the Soviet Union
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This article is about former migration control in the Russian Empire and the USSR. For the service for Russians since 1993, see Resident registration in Russia.
A propiska (Russian: пропи́ска, IPA: [prɐˈpʲiskə] ⓘ, plural: propiski)[1] was both a written residency permit and a migration-recording tool, used in the Russian Empire before 1917 and in the Soviet Union from the 1930s.[2]
The USSR had both permanent (прописка по месту жительства or постоянная прописка) and temporary (временная прописка) propiskas. In the transition period to a market economy in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, the permanent propiska in municipal apartments was a factor that allowed dwellers to obtain private-property rights on the living space they were "inscripted" in during privatization (those who built housing at their own expense obtained a permanent propiska there by definition).