Go East, Young Man!

-killerbunny: October 30, 2001

"There be gold in them thar formerly commie hills!" Well I don't know about the gold, but for the first time since the 1918 revolution, land will be freely available for sale in Russia. According to the Moscow Times, "President Vladimir Putin has just signed long-awaited legislation allowing the sale of land across the country..."

This new Land Code designed to advance investment both domestically and from foreign investment, by allowing the sale of roughly 2 percent of the country's 1.7 billion hectares of commercial land. It also legalizes the ownership of about 40 million dacha plots.

The ability to purchase land will be an equal opportunity for non-Russians, who are regarded the same as Russians in the Land Code, except that they will not be able to buy plots in areas close to federal borders and those important to national security. Agricultural land sales will be covered in separate legislation.

And the land is pretty cheap too. The Times says, "The new law sets the price of land at five to 30 times the land tax rate for Moscow and St. Petersburg, five to 17 times for cities with populations of 500,000 to 3 million, and three to 10 times for towns with a population of less than 500,000. The average land tax in Moscow this year is 97,200 rubles ($3,284) a hectare, or 9.72 rubles (32.8 cents) a square meter, according to Andersen. The highest rate, for land inside the Garden Ring, is 720,664 rubles a hectare, or $2.43 a square meter."

My how things do change....