A Russian tourist identified only as Anastasia was denied boarding on a flight to China after a border service officer at Kazan International Airport declared her passport invalid, saying the moles on her face did not match those in her passport photo. She had been travelling to Shanghai to celebrate her birthday.
Anastasia said the officer confiscated her five-year-old international passport at the gate, calling it invalid. He told her the photo appeared to be a mirror image of her actual face, since in real life her moles sit on one side of her face while in the picture they appear on the other side.
According to Anastasia, the officer said the rejection was based on a new amendment adopted in June. She said she found this surprising, since she had used the same passport to travel abroad many times over the past four years, including at least one previous trip to China.
How the mirrored photo happened
Anastasia explained that the photo in her passport was an ordinary selfie, and that front-facing smartphone cameras automatically produce a mirrored image unless a photographer corrects it afterward. She said no one had noticed the discrepancy when her documents were originally processed five years earlier.
Kazan is the capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan and home to one of the country's busier international airports, with regular flights connecting Russia to destinations across Asia, including China. Russian international passports for foreign travel are typically issued for either five or ten years, and the photographs inside them are meant to serve as an accurate likeness of the holder for identity checks at border crossings.
Passport replacement delayed
The border guard advised Anastasia to contact Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs to have a new passport issued as quickly as possible. But officials at the ministry told her they would not be able to replace the document on the same day, according to her account.
Her story was first shared on social media and later picked up by the Telegram channel Krysha TurDoma.
The case follows another recent incident involving a Russian traveller who was denied entry to Israel over rubles found in her wallet. She was ordered deported and spent two days at Tel Aviv's airport before leaving the country.
