He's got a Soviet passport; it's just his wife's who's English'.
Until Belarus established its independence Soviet passports were used.
Although he acquired French citizenship, he also kept his Soviet passport with him.
The reforms that swept through the Eastern bloc brought the restoration of his Soviet passport in 1990.
It was not immediately clear how many of the 23 affected by the reinstatement of citizenship would accept Soviet passports and return home.
According to his Soviet passport he was Latvian.
The Soviet passports were set to expire in 2008, and so a new passport was needed.
Anyone who had not been issued a "propiska", the Soviet internal passport that became required beginning in January, was relocated.
Unlike the Soviet passports, which had three photo pages, the new passports only have one.
The Soviet passports ceased to be valid as means of personal identification since mid-2004, but it is still legal (though barely practicable) to have one.