From July 2013 you have to show your passport when you want to buy a ticket for local trains or buses to a neighboring region in Russia. This is the result of a new order issued by the Ministry of Transport. The motive behind the order is to establish a database with information of all passengers travelling between the different regions of Russia.
The information will only be available to law enforcement agencies like FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who can use the database to trace the route of any citizen and identify ‘suspicious characters’, Kommersant writes.
Transport companies that neglect to send information to the database can be prosecuted.
