There’s the thing known as white passport, officially “Certificate of identity” or semi-officially “Alien’s passport”. That’s a document that looks just like a passport of a country but has a white cover instead of red, black, green or blue. It means that the country that has issued the white passport proves that the person is who they say they are, and it also tends to mean that that person has a right to reside in that country. It’s much more difficult to travel abroad with a white passport than with an actual passport, but it gets you started. Then, after living somewhere long enough, you can get a new citizenship and get on with your life at last.

One thing that can be difficult is that to get some other citizenship, many countries require you to get rid of our previous ones first. For example in the Russia you can get rid of your citizenship only by travelling to the Russia and doing all the paperwork there. Which takes about two months. During which time they’ll send you to the front and you’ll die. It depends on the mood of the worker whether you can get a white passport in such a case or not.