SOSLOVO, RUSSIA -- Every time he steps outside to feed his scrawny chickens,
Valentin Simionov can see what he believes is the looming end of his family's centuries-old farming legacy.
Just over the wooden fence that marks the end of his 1.5-hectare property, a
row of opulent, multistoreyed dachas -- the Russian equivalent of country cottages -- sits where his neighbours' farms once stood. The dachas, status symbols of the country's nouveaux riches, dwarf the small, red-brick farmhouse where parts of three generations of Mr. Simionov's family still live and work.
The new dacha dwellers have actually jumped the legal gun in buying their properties. Last week, a new bill -- one that erases the last vestiges of the Bolshevik Revolution -- passed the first of three readings in the State Duma. It will make legal the buying and selling of farmland in Russia for the first time since 1917.
In principle, Mr. Simionov sees nothing wrong with giving farmers the right to do what they please with their land. But he worries the new law will give
the rich the legal means to force poor farmers off their lands without proper compensation. "I'm afraid some rich guy will come and just tell me to get off my land, the land my father died in the war to protect," he said, pointing to a black-and-white portrait of his father hanging in the kitchen, alongside other ancestors who farmed the same plot of land in this village just west of Moscow.
"They'll just buy me, the village and the land and say, 'Get out of here.' "
Like many Russians, the 62-year-old farmer has been scarred by previous privatization initiatives undertaken by successive governments since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
When public utilities and other state enterprises were privatized in the early 1990s, he, like almost everyone else, bought vouchers supposedly worth
10,000 rubles (about $25 U.S. at the time) that could be converted into shares in the newly private companies. Like millions of others, Mr. Simionov
was left with nothing to show for his money when the scheme collapsed.
"Everyone was promised something and did not get it," said Alexander Galdin,
a member of the municipal council in the neighbouring town of Odinstovo. "For the last decade, people have been deceived, and now the government is trying
to do it again."
Most farms are still collectively owned, as they were in Soviet days, and many farmers worry that they could be forced off their land with little compensation if the majority of the collective votes to sell.
The new government bill gives farmers and local authorities one month to buy
a plot before it is offered for open sale. The proposed land changes have touched off a political firestorm in rural Russia, where living standards have fallen over the past decade and nostalgia for the Soviet system is far stronger than in the cities.
A fading Communist Party has tried, with some success, to capitalize on the anger. Last week in the Duma, Communist Party Leader Gennady Zyuganov raised
the spectre of multinational agricultural firms sweeping in and buying up the "motherland," and suggested some might even take up arms against to protect their territory from foreigners.
"For us, it's not just about land, it's a question of war and peace," Mr. Zyuganov warned, urging a national referendum on the issue. "The policy of the current government only serves the interests of oligarchs [business tycoons] and swindlers."
Heated protests, including calls for President Vladimir Putin to resign over
his support for the changes, have forced the government to consider amendments to the bill, including ones that would allow foreigners to rent, but not buy, farmland. Another proposal would see one price set for Russians, a higher rate for foreigners.
The government has sworn to press ahead with some version of land reform largely because the potential windfall from the privatization is too big to ignore.
Russia, the largest country in the world, has about 1.7 billion hectares, roughly a quarter of which are qualified as agricultural. According to Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev, the land could be worth between $80-trillion and $100-trillion on the open market.
"Nobody doubts the necessity of land turnover," Alexander Chetveriakov, head
of the Duma's agriculture committee, said in an interview. "It is vital that
we have this law."
Although Russia's 1993 constitution allowed land sales, the Communists controlled previous parliaments and were able to block the introduction of the legislation necessary to enable such transactions. They lost control of the Duma in the 1999 election.