French actor Gerard Depardieu, left, greets Russian President Vladimir Putin after his arrival late Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013, at the president's residence in Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Depardieu has received a Russian passport after flying to Russia for a late night dinner with Putin. Depardieu sought Russian citizenship as part of his battle against a proposed super tax on millionaires in France, and Putin granted his request last week. (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service)
French actor Gerard Depardieu, left, greets Russian President Vladimir Putin after his arrival late Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013, at the president's residence in Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Depardieu has received a Russian passport after flying to Russia for a late night dinner with Putin. Depardieu sought Russian citizenship as part of his battle against a proposed super tax on millionaires in France, and Putin granted his request last week. (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service)
French actor Gerard Depardieu pose with his Russian passport at a stage of a theater, wearing a traditional folk outfit, after he arrived to the city of Saransk, some 700 km (435 miles) east of Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011. Depardieu has received a Russian passport after flying to Russia for a late night dinner with Putin. Depardieu sought Russian citizenship as part of his battle against a proposed super tax on millionaires in France, and Putin granted his request last week. (AP Photo/Mordovmedia.ru)
French actor Gerard Depardieu gestures while speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin, unseen, after his arrival late Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013, at the president's residence in Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Depardieu has received a Russian passport after flying to Russia for a late night dinner with Putin. Depardieu sought Russian citizenship as part of his battle against a proposed super tax on millionaires in France, and Putin granted his request last week. (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service)
French actor Gerard Depardieu, left, greets Russian President Vladimir Putin after his arrival late Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013, at the president's residence in Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Depardieu has received a Russian passport after flying to Russia for a late night dinner with Putin. Depardieu sought Russian citizenship as part of his battle against a proposed super tax on millionaires in France, and Putin granted his request last week. (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service)
French actor Gerard Depardieu, left, speaks to President Vladimir Putin and unidentified aides after his arrival late Saturday, Jan. 5, 2013, at the president's residence in Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Depardieu has received a Russian passport after flying to Russia for a late night dinner with President Vladimir Putin. Depardieu sought Russian citizenship as part of his battle against a proposed super tax on millionaires in France, and Putin granted his request last week. (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev, Presidential Press Service)
MOSCOW (AP) ? The day after receiving his new Russian passport from President Vladimir Putin, French actor Gerard Depardieu flew Sunday to the provincial town of Saransk, where he was greeted as a local hero and offered an apartment for free.
Depardieu had sought Russian citizenship as part of his battle against a proposed super tax on millionaires in France.
Putin granted his request last week and then welcomed the actor late Saturday to his residence in Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Russian television showed the two men embracing and then chatting over supper, discussing a soon-to-be-released film in which Depardieu plays Russian monk Grigory Rasputin.
Depardieu flew Sunday to Saransk, a town about 500 kilometers (300 miles) east of Moscow, where he was met at a snow-covered airport by the governor and a group of women in traditional costume singing folk songs. He flashed his new passport to the crowd before setting out on a tour of the town.
The governor invited Depardieu to settle in Saransk and offered him an apartment of his choice, according to reports on state television.
Depardieu has not said where he would take up residence in Russia, only that he did not want to live in Moscow because it is too big and he prefers a village.
The Frenchman has spent a fair bit of time in Russia in recent years, including for the filming of the French-Russian film "Rasputin," and he expresses an admiration for Putin. But it is Russia's flat 13 percent income tax that appears to be the biggest draw at the moment as he flees high taxes in France.
France's new Socialist government tried to raise the tax on income above ?1 million ($1.3 million) to 75 percent from the current 41 percent. That plan was struck down by the highest court, but Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac said Sunday that the government is reworking the law so the superrich will still be asked to pay an elevated rate. He said the government is also considering putting the new tax in place for longer than the two years initially imagined.
"I find it a bit pathetic that for tax reasons this man ? whom by the way I admire infinitely as an actor ? has decided to exile himself," Cahuzac said.
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Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris contributed to this report.
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