More than 20 years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, yet there are people in Moldova who still use passports issued by the now-defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
 
 
 
This is also true of the unrecognised republic of Transnistria. There are currently around 200 thousand citizens with Soviet passports in Moldova, of whom more than 150 thousand live on the right bank of the Dniester River and more than 20 thousand on the left.
 
 
 
Until March 2014, there was no law prohibiting the use of these documents. Now, however, the Moldovan government has approved a bill providing for the exchange of Soviet passports by 1 September 2014. Citizens without a valid Moldovan passport will be unable to receive their pensions and benefits or to vote. Soviet passports can be exchanged free of charge as part of the state policy of providing Moldovan citizens with state identity documents.
 
There is no such law in Transnistria. Many people living there use these Soviet passports and do not want to part with them. Soviet passports belonging to pensioners and containing a special insert proving Transnistrian citizenship remain valid indefinitely.
 
 
 
As the country remains unrecognised, Transnistrian citizens are in no hurry to exchange these passports. Many people obtain citizenship of other states using a USSR citizen's passport. Possession of a Soviet passport allows a Transnistrian citizen to obtain citizenship of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova or another state.
 
 
 
The photobook “USSR PASSPORT” consists of two parts: a copy of a Soviet passport and photographic portraits of people with Soviet passports. It also includes Soviet objects, photographs and treasured childhood toys found in these people's apartments. This is the last opportunity to capture people from the bygone Soviet era together with the document of a state that disappeared long ago. The book also includes brief but revealing comments from these people about the Soviet era.
 
About the comments: these people find it quite difficult to part with their Soviet passports; for them, the document is a memory of the past, of a utopian state where they spent their youth and their lives. Many of them still cannot accept the loss of that country and try with all their strength to preserve a part of the Soviet Union. This makes me wonder: if there are still people with Soviet passports, then the USSR still exists too, perhaps not in reality, but in some people's minds.
 
 
 
This project is also personal. I include a copy of my father's passport; he died suddenly in 1982, when I was only 6 years old. Much time has passed, and this passport was a reminder of the Soviet era and of my father. In 2011, circumstances forced me to apply for Romanian citizenship, and I had to provide documents proving my father's death. I had to visit many offices and courts before being told that he was not registered as dead. I was told that it is easier to obtain a birth certificate than a death certificate. Absurd as it may seem, on paper my father appears to be alive, and the Soviet Union continues to live in these passports and people.
 
 
 
The subject of the Soviet Union and its legacy is relevant today, especially after the events in Ukraine and Crimea.