To Le Monde columnist Isabelle Mandraud, the vast scale of the Russian Far East is dizzying. Ten times the size of her home country of France, the area's six million square kilometers is home to only 6.2 million people, "that is to say, half the population of Moscow."
Ownership for the land is transferred after five years, on the condition that its new owners promise to engage in economically useful activity. Moreover, families are eligible for even more land, which each family member, even children, qualifying for their own hectare.
About 2,000 adventure seekers and entrepreneurs have already signed up for their slice of Far Eastern paradise, with registration possible right off the Far East Development Ministry's website.
The Le Monde contributor pointed out that the Russian Far East lies on the border with the Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin, home to about 66 million Chinese. In other words, the journalist suggested, Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang's comments during a 2014 visit to Moscow about Russia being the largest country in the world, while China is the most populous, "must still be echoing in Putin's mind." Accordingly, Mandraud suggested, a year later, the Russian president launched his project for the development of the Far East.
Putin, Mandraud suggested, may have been inspired by Abraham Lincoln. In 1862, the US president signed the Homestead Act, a federal law which gave US citizens free land in the broad expanse of the newly purchased, conquered and otherwise acquired territories of the American West.
Lincoln's decision played an important role in the development of the Wild West. Now, the journalist noted, a century-and-a-half later, the Kremlin is following a similar path in trying to develop its own 'wild' Far Eastern territories.
While it's probably true that the historical experiences of the United States have played some role in the Russian government's thinking on the country's vast Far Eastern expanses and how to tame them, it's important to point out that Russia also has plenty of experience of its own in efforts to develop the Far East.
In his own time during the early 20th century, reformist-minded Imperial Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin made a concerted effort to give serious impetus to the development of Siberia and the Far East. It's likely that he had more familiarity and interest in the reforms passed in nineteenth-century United States than the Russian government of today. Unfortunately, Stolypin's own initiatives were curtailed by his assassination, the beginning of the First World War, and the ensuing revolution and civil war, which left his ambitious plans forgotten.
Russian experts, for their part, have already made a series of proposals on exactly what it is that local and federal authorities can do to assist in developing infrastructure, roads included. Reassuringly, the government has already accepted some of the proposals, and is giving a serious look at others.
