Russian car number plates
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In Russia, the plate format has changed since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Soviet plates prior to 1982 were white-on-black. They had combination of four digits, grouped by two and three Cyrillic letters. Rear plate was square with letters located below the numbers. From those letters, first two indicated the region. For example, 75-63 КЛЖ combination referd to the car from Kaliningrad region. After 1982 a new black-on-white format for newly registered cars was adopted. The 1982 format differentiated privately owned from government owned cars and trucks (virtually all vehicles used for business, as well as all businesses belonged to the government). The government owned vehicles retained NN-NN LLL scheme while private vehicles used L NN-NN LL. The last two letters indicated regions or large cities. Largest cities usually had several two-letter codes to account for a larger number of cars. For example city of Kiev used КИ and ХТ codes while Kiev Oblast' region used КХ. The current format uses a letter followed by 3 digits and two more letters. To improve legibility of the numbers for Russian cars abroad, only a small subset of Cyrillic characters that look like Latin characters are used. Finally, the region number (77, 99, 97 and now 177 for Moscow, 78 and 98 for Saint-Petersburg) and letters "RUS" are included, as well as the national flag. There is a different format for trailers (4 digits and 2 letters). Some vehicles, like trolleybuses, are not required to have license plates, because they can not leave the network they operate on and can be identified by number that is painted and is given by local public transport authority. Trucks and buses generally have their licence numbers painted on them in large letters on the rear of the vehicle, although they also bear licence plates.[citation needed] Some autonomous regions are not required to have the flag on the licence plates.[citation needed]
Vehicles used by certain organisations or categories of person carry special plates:
- Police forces have special numbers on blue colored plates.
- Diplomatic cars have white characters on a red background. A number on the plate identifies the embassy to which they belong, assigned in order based on the date at which that country established diplomatic relations with Russia or the Soviet Union. For example, Britain is 001, the USA is 004, and Paraguay is 157.
- The Armed forces has white characters on a black background.
- 'Administrative' vehicles (such as busses, licensed taxis and licensed Marshroutnoe Taxis) have black characters on a yellow background.
There are special series (usually numbers starting with A) reserved for government officials (for example, A 001 AA usually belongs to the governor of the region). These numbers have a larger flag instead of the region number.
Rich businessmen, prominent politicians and crime lords often use illegally acquired special licence plates (government or police) to get preferential treatment from the transport police and as a status symbol.[citation needed]
