On January 19, the Abkhaz authorities began issuing Abkhaz passports to the residents of the unrecognized republic. At the initial stage, passports will be issued to the residents in the capital, Sokhumi.

According to news agency Apsnypress, the price of a new Abkhaz passport is 280 Russian rubles (approximately USD 10).

According to the law on citizenship adopted by the Abkhaz Parliament last October, citizens of the Republic of Abkhazia are ethnic Abkhazians, regardless of the place of their residence or their citizenship; persons, who have been permanently living in Abkhazia for no less than five years following the adoption of the Act on Independence of the Republic of Abkhazia on October 12, 1999. At the same time, citizens of Abkhazia can simultaneously be citizens of the Russian Federation alone, according to the law. 

Tbilisi has already condemned this law as “a discriminative decision against almost all ethnic Georgians and persons of other nationalities of the region.”