Eighty-seven of 167 passengers carrying Soviet passports left the plane in Gander, Newfoundland, on Thursday, the officials said. The plane had been flying from Moscow to Havana and then on to Lima, Peru.
"A Soviet passport holder doesn't need a visa to stay in Canada", said Christopher Sapardanis, a political vice consul at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow.
While it was common during the Cold War for East European and Soviet refugees to disembark at Gander's airport, where many trans-Atlantic flights often refuel, this group is the largest en masse plane walkout in the town's history.
The group of asylum seekers, which included Moldovans, Russians, Ukrainians and citizens of the Baltic states, will now go through the standard refugee consideration process, Sapardanis said.
Russians and other citizens of the former Soviet Union still carry Soviet passports pending the creation by their governments of new passports for each of the 15 republics.
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