I have read all this and had a think about it, then checked the enyclopedia and this seems to fit a legal context.

One reason for the difficulty of finding a translation is that formal registration of one's place of residence is not normally required in any English-speaking countries (and certainly not in historical practice), so the related terms don't exist in normal language. It's interesting to note that all the references cited for 'deregister' are translations, and IMO 'deregsiter' is a coinage, although possibly a legitimate one.

For the action on the part of the person who is moving (or wishes to move), a formulation such as 'give notice of a change of residence' or 'request a change in the registered place of residence' could also be used. The first implies that the person can simply change residence on his or her on initiative, which was probably not the case in Soviet Russia; the second implies that official approval is required for a change of residence.

For the action on the part of the person(s) who maintain the register(s), a formulation such as 'delete the registration' could be used, although that implies that the information is removed from the registry (probably not the case). A more elaborate formulation would be 'revise the registration to note that the person is no longer resident' or 'mark the registration as "no longer resident" (which probably reflects the actual practice).



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Note added at 11 hrs 11 mins (2005-11-17 13:47:07 GMT)
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In response to the asker's further explanation:
For the entry in the passport, I'd suggest 'revise the (registered) place of residence', but not 'deregister', because the result of deregistration is that you are no longer registered, and presumably nobody was/is allowed to have no registered place of residence. You could also say that the previously entry is voided and a new entry is made.
As for the records maintained by the passport offices, if the registration entry by one office is annulled (deregistered) and a new registration is made in a different office by an unrelated official, with some finite amount of elapsed time between the two acts (similar to the system used in Germany and the Netherlands, for instance), you could say 'deregister' (and correspondly 're-register'). If the offices effectively have a single shared (common) registry, you could also use 'deregister' for the act of nullifying the previous registration, but you could equally well say 'revise the registered place of residence' for the entire process of deregistration and re-registration.
In short: I'm not sure that 'deregister' is the ideal solution for your case. Deregistration implies that the registration effectively no longer exists (although the record may still exist). If the registration still exists and the only change is that the place of residence has changed (I hope you follow my logic), and the change is made in a single act, 'revise' would be more appropriate IMO.

in the U.S. when we move, we want the post office to forward our mail. We fill out a form with our new address, called a "change of address" form.

HTH

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Note added at 3 hrs 18 mins (2005-11-17 05:54:04 GMT)
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sorry, OFFICIALLY register

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Note added at 13 hrs 34 mins (2005-11-17 16:10:13 GMT)
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To Andy (no more room for peer comments): Please don't take the neutral personally. I consider the evolution of the English language a serious issue; I don't think native speakers should allow non-natives to create English words willy-nilly.
Only one of the references was available - the Munich one - which is written in childish English.
In the U.S. the act of "changing one's residence" automatically cancels out the old one, since the post office will not allow 2 addresses. In the interest of efficiency, we simply do not refer to the intermediary act of cancelling out the first one, but it is assumed.

...and then re-register at the new place. This is the most succinct way I can think of to say it; I think we tend to say it a bit more wordily, eg, "to notify the xxx office/authorities of a change in residence."

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Note added at 1 day 5 hrs 12 mins (2005-11-18 07:47:35 GMT)
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I think that basically what you will have to decide is if you want to make this a one-word term, at all costs, since (as people have pointed out), a word describing this process doesn't exist in English since the practise doesn't exist in English-speaking countries. If translating the idea into a single word is important above all else, then you could use something like "deregister" and the meaning will probably be conveyed effectively enough. However, it doesn't sound like "real" English, to my ears; it strikes me as a bit of a foreign-sounding stop-gap type of word, if that makes sense. I think if you want to convey the idea in English that sounds natural to native speakers, you will have to be a little more wordy--use a phrase that describes the process as succinctly as possible.