 In Georgia this occurred in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where residents continued to be the citizens of Soviet Union and kept Soviet passports even a decade after the break-up of the Soviet Union.In 2002, a new Citizenship Law of Russia simplified acquisition of citizenship for any citizen of the Soviet Union, regardless current place of residence.In Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russian nationalist non-governmental organizations such as the Congress of Russian Communities of Abkhazia carried papers to a nearby Russian city for processing so that residents did not need to travel to obtain Russian citizenship.