Russian Woman Couldn't Change Her Name Because of USSR Officials: An Insoluble Problem

A Muscovite faced an unusual and apparently insoluble problem when she wanted to change her name. It turned out that when she was born, back in the Soviet Union, there was confusion in her documents, and bureaucratic obstacles made such a seemingly simple procedure as renaming impossible.

As MK has learned, a woman named Aitalina applied to the registry office. This name is of Yakut origin, translated as "Light Deity", and it was not given to the lady by chance: she was born in Yakutia. Recently, for some reason, Aitalina decided to change her name, which was the reason for the application to the registry office. But then the unexpected happened: it turned out that the birth registration act, which remains with the officials, and the woman's birth certificate, which is issued to her, indicated different localities! According to the birth certificate, Aitalina was born in Yakutsk (which is how it really was), and according to the registration act - in a small settlement of gold miners beyond the Arctic Circle, which now does not exist at all. As a result, incorrect information from the act ended up in the Unified State Register of Civil Status Acts, and it is impossible to change the name without making an amendment to the register.

The Yakut woman hoped that the inaccuracy would be promptly corrected, but she was in for a bitter disappointment. It turned out that there was no mistake in the discrepancy, and the officials acted strictly according to the law. In the 80s, when Aitalina was born, the Instruction on the procedure for registering acts of civil status in the RSFSR was in effect. It stated that if a baby is registered at the place of residence of the parents, and not at the location of the maternity hospital, then the birth certificate also indicates the address of the father and mother! That is why the woman's place of birth is listed not as the capital of the republic, but as a tiny village on the edge of the world. But there are no grounds for correcting these discrepancies. So far, all attempts by the Russian woman to bring her documents into uniformity have been unsuccessful.

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