MOSCOW, April 1 - RIA Novosti. On April 1, the citizens of the Russian Federation will be issued new foreign passports, said Alexander Aksyonov, head of the visa and registration section of the passport and visa department of the Interior Ministry. "They are not quite new but rather standardised," Rossiiskaya Gazeta quotes Aksyonov as saying in its April 1 issue.
The new passports look like the old ones but the photo of the owner is sealed by a protective film and information about the holder is entered not only in the traditional but also in the coded form in a specially designated zone. The computers can easily read the coded message, which will speed up the passport control procedure.
