Originally Posted by
Temedar
You are wrong. You will still need an internal passport for many activities in Russia, such as opening a bank account. The travel passport (with or without the consulate stamp) would be enough for some operations like currency exchange, but for many others you do need the internal passport.
According to the Passport statute, only those citizens who reside in the country are required to have an internal passport.
As for banks, I am not sure. Probably it is somehow related to some restrictions because of one's being non-resident for taxation purposes. Or, as often is the case, the Russian bureaucrats' general tendency to interpret the rules in the most restrictive and 'safe' way and their fear to make a step aside from their habitual course of action.
Anyway, I guess OP is probably not going to open accounts in Russian banks, so that is irrelevant to him.