Window on Eurasia: Self-Proclaimed ‘Russian Empire’ Wants to Give Snowden a Passport

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 5 – While the media is focusing on the possibility Edward Snowden will get Russian citizenship by accepting the marriage proposal of Russian spy Anna Chapman, the URA.ru agency reports the leaker now trapped in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport may get a travel document, albeit one that is unlikely to do him much good.

            Anton Bakov, who URA.ru’s Ivan Nekrasov describes as “a Urals genius of political creativity and who has proclaimed himself to be prime minister of the Russian Empire of the North Pole and Antarctica, says he has taken to Sheremetyevo a passport from that unrecognized state to be given to Snowden (ura.ru/content/svrd/05-07-2013/articles/1036259890.html).

            The website of this “state” – and the site is about all this empire controls – has posted a decision by Bakov to offer Snowden a Russian Empire passport and to organize “a rescue expedition” to the Moscow airport to hand it over to the former US intelligence officer who can’t leave the transit area without a passport (russianempire.org/news/Postanovlenie_113.htm).

            According to the URA.ru report, as of today, “the Russian Empire does not have diplomatic relations with any state or, according to Bakov, need them. Asked whether he thought Snowden would accept such a passport, the self-proclaimed prime minister of this empire said he didn’t know but suggested it could allow him to buy a ticket and leave the transit lounge.

            “Now, we shall see,” Baskov told the news agency. “Snowden’s main problem is the lack of a passport [and] we are solving that. If he ants, he can go to Ecuador or Venezuela.” But at least, he continued, Snowden will cease to be “a headache” for the leaders of the Russian Federation. 

            Bakov has a long history of fantastic projects, URA.ru points out. At one time, he declared the existence of his own Urals Republic, and in 2011, he and a group of his friends decided to declare the establishment of a new Russian Empire, consisting of portions of the earth, “open to Russians but for various reasons not included within contemporary Russia.”

            Those are first and foremost the north and south polar regions.  Last year, Bakov added another title: he became head of the Monarchist Party of Russia, which unlike his "Russian Empire," “has been registered” by the Justice Ministry.