MOSCOW – French actor Gerard Depardieu got a new permanent address in Russia — 1 Democracy St. — on Saturday, adding a final touch to his quest to get Russian citizenship.
After receiving his Russian passport from President Vladimir Putin last month, Depardieu had it stamped with the new address in Saransk, a city of 300,000 that lies some 650 km east of Moscow.
The actor has been at the center of a heated debate over tax exiles as France’s Socialist government proposes a hefty tax on the rich, but he has denied that he accepted the passport to escape the tax man.
Saransk is the provincial capital of the Mordovia region, home to a sprawling web of Soviet-era prison camps, where one of the members of the Pussy Riot band is serving her two-year sentence for an irreverent “punk prayer” against Putin.
Showing off his knowledge of local history, Depardieu likened himself to Yemelyan Pugachev, the chief of a peasant rebellion in the 18th century. “Yemelyan Pugachev was a peasant czar who came to Kazan and to Saransk,” Depardieu said, according to Russia Today television. “I am like Pugachev: I am a peasant, and I want to be czar of Saransk.”
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