The question is did the Manifesto from Catherine, with modifications from Czar's that ruled after her, and the Instruktion mean that Germans were considered "citizens", or just foreigners living in the country?  The fact that German's were drafted in the Russian armed services doesn't mean they were citizens.  Even in this country, non-citizens have been drafted into the US Army, as seen during the Vietnam War If you think you read that the German's were citizens of Russia, where did you read it? As for descendants of GR's going to Russia and not being able to leave, my question is how could Russian authorities possibly know that someone was related to a GR leaving Russia without permission.  First, they don't have genealogy information connecting descendants to GR's.  Why would anyone go to Russia and go to authorities telling them their ancestors left without permission? Gary Martens ----- Original Message ---- From: Rosemary Larson <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wed, November 3, 2010 1:03:22 PM Subject: [GV] Russian "citizen" question The U.S. constitution was written for the express purpose to do away with kings, czars, etc. Today other countries also have citizens but in earlier times people were "subjects" of whomever was in the ruling class of the various countries, principalities, etc.. Rosemary Larson AHSGR VC ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message