Yellow ticket

The title "replacement card" refers to the fact that upon registration, the prostitute left her original passport or residence permit (вид на жительство) in the local police office and was issued the "yellow card" as a replacement personal ID.

Another alleged association of yellow color with prostitution is that Tsar Paul (“Pavel”) I, known for his obsession with uniforms, ordered that prostitutes wear yellow dresses to differentiate them from other women in public settings.

The yellow ticket as a residence permit allowed the holders to live beyond the Pale of Settlement, and according to contemporary witnesses thousands of young Jewish women took upon themselves the stigma of being labelled a prostitute and the burden of biweekly medical check-ups without actually being prostitutes, for the purpose of escaping the Pale and seeking higher education in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg.

Pola Negri, a Polish actress who later became a Hollywood star, acted in two silent film versions of the story (Poland 1915 and Germany 1918).

A restored version of the latter toured the United States in 2013 accompanied by a newly commissioned score for the latter by the klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals.