Looks like he’s really doing it.  French actor Gerard Depardieu is now officially a resident of the Russian city of Saransk, where he swore he’d go if France raises taxes on the wealthy.

Critics dismissed it as a publicity stunt when Depardieu asked his old friend Russian President Vladimir Putin for citizenship to take advantage of the motherland’s 13 percent flat tax rate.  Putin obliged, by official decree,

But Depardieu showed up over the weekend to pick up his official residency papers in Saransk, 400 miles east of Moscow says is too crowded.  He says he plans to open a restaurant there to prove that modern Russia is an "open society" (try telling that to orphans, punk rockers, or journalists?).