Alright, so I needed to get my hands on a Belarusian passport. I gotta say, it wasn’t a walk in the park. First off, I did some digging around and found out that Belarus started issuing these biometric passports for going in and out of the country. Sounds fancy, right?
Then, I stumbled upon this rule that if you’re a foreigner, you gotta live in Belarus with a residence permit for seven years straight, only leaving for no more than three months a year, to even think about getting citizenship. Seven years! Who has that kind of time?
But I wasn’t giving up. I thought maybe I could just renew the darn thing without actually going to Belarus. So, I called up the consulate in New York. They were pretty helpful, and i was planning to apply for the PP series passport.

Now, having a Belarus passport lets you travel to a bunch of places without a visa. But for the places that do need a visa, you gotta go through the usual application hassle.
But then, someone told me renewing could be a real pain unless I had kept my “propiska” active all these years. And they warned me to clean up my phone and social media, just in case. It’s all a bit of a headache, to be honest.
Anyway, I’m still in the process, trying to figure it all out. It’s not easy, but I’m pushing through. Wish me luck!
- Called the consulate: They were helpful.
- Residence requirement: Seven years in Belarus.
- Visa-free travel: Some countries, yes. Others, no.
- “Propiska” and social media: Might be a problem.
It’s a real journey, let me tell you. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? I’ll keep y’all updated on how it goes.