Ethnic Georgians who have returned to the Gali district and want to obtain Abkhaz passports, according to Abkhazian law, should undergo lengthy procedures which also include a requirement to submit documented proof that they renounced their Georgian citizenship. President Bagapsh was inclined to regard Georgians in Gali as "Georgianised Abkhazians." According to Bagapsh, these were actually ethnic Abkhaz people who were "Georgianised" during the long process of the Georgianisation of Abkhazia that culminated during the rule of Joseph Stalin and Lavrenti Beria. So in his official speeches, Bagapsh often added the Gali Georgians to population estimates of the Abkhaz, disregarding the fact that they still thought of themselves as ethnic Georgians rather than Abkhaz.