MOSCOW - Russia is about to issue new internal passports that no longer will include the notorious "fifth line" - the declaration of nationality that reinforced Soviet-era discrimination against Jews, Tatars and other minorities.
For the first time in Russian history - even the czars, after all, required their subjects to list religion on their identity papers - everyone will be identified simply and plainly as a citizen of Russia.
"It's a victory for common sense," said human-rights activist Sergei Kovalyov.
Although its leaders spoke of creating new sovietized citizens, the Soviet Union always officially labeled its citizens by nationality, an often painful reminder that, regardless of communist propaganda, theirs was not a classless society.
Ethnic Russians, who made up only half of the Soviet Union's population, profited in study, work and politics from a not-so-subtle pro-Russian chauvinism. Everyone else - Jews, Tatars, Uzbeks and the other 99 nationalities of the sprawling empire - suffered varying degrees of prejudice.
Children of so-called mixed marriages could choose which parent's nationality to declare when they turned 16. That is when they had to get the passport that they would have to produce everywhere throughout their lives - from the doctor's office to the university to the factory.
Taking Russian nationality was considered the smart option.
Vlada Kuznetsova, a 24-year-old photographer's assistant in Moscow, remembered the debate she had with herself. Her father was Russian and her mother Tatar. "I knew that putting down 'Tatar' could give me complications in my career and in life," she said. "And people used to make jokes about Tatar people, that they were primitive and ignorant. I didn't want to be like that, even though I knew that putting a different nationality on my passport wouldn't make me better."
For children who had one Jewish parent, the choice was especially critical because entrance into many universities, institutes and government jobs was closed to Jews, and travel abroad was forbidden.
Nationality was known as the "fifth line" because it came fifth on the passport, after last name, first name, date of birth and place of birth.
Beginning in October, the new Russian internal passports will drop not only that identifier but also the Soviet hammer-and-sickle emblem, which will be replaced by the new Russian national symbol of the double-headed eagle.
Col. Vladimir Danilov, head of the interior ministry's passport office, said the decision to drop nationality was made last month by a presidential commission set up to study questions of citizenship.
"The idea was to bring the practice in line with the Russian constitution, which says a person can choose for himself whether to mention his nationality," he said. "And our passports will now meet the international standard."
Obviously, it will take more than removing the fifth line from passports to eliminate discrimination based on nationality.
"This is a step toward gradually changing the social atmosphere in the country," said Kovalyov, the Moscow human-rights activist. "But for now there will be no practical change in everyday life. Dropping of the fifth line won't stop the bigots. If before they judged others by the passport, now they will judge by the shape of the nose or the color of the skin."