The country’s antiquated immigration system has moved a small step closer to hauling itself into the 21st century.

A new automated system for immigration cards has just been installed at Domodedovo Airport, which means foreigners will no longer have to fill them in by hand.

“This significantly simplifies the procedure and it speeds up admission time considerably,” Evgeny Lodkin, from the Border Guard Service of Domodedovo Airport, told RT.

For foreigners coming into the country, it makes the whole process a lot easier. It does not matter if you forgot a pen, or if you did not pick up an immigration card on the flight. All you have to do now is hand your passport over at the counter, and they will do the rest.

The system was tested at Vnukovo airport for the last two years, and was found to have cut the processing time in half, to less than a minute per person.

The Federal Migration Service says the cards are needed for keeping tabs on foreigners' movements.

Previously, border guards inputted the data manually, and illegible handwriting and obscure languages were common problems.

The system at Domodedovo cost 10 million rubles to install. Sheremetyevo Airport is next. Other airports in line for the upgrade are Kazan, for the University Games in 2013, and Vladivostok, which hosts the APEC summit next year.