赠地开发远东 俄罗斯东进运动能否成功

KAMEN-RYBOLOV, Russia — Standing ankle deep in mud in a swampy grassland more than 4,000 miles from his home, Yuri A. Bugaev surveyed a mosquito-infested wasteland that the Russian government is offering to would-be pioneers under its own modern-day version of the 1862 Homestead Act in the United States.

俄罗斯卡缅雷博洛夫——尤里‧A‧布加耶夫(Yuri A. Bugaev)站在一块湿软的草地上，泥深及膝。他审视着这一片离家4000英里（约6437千米）、蚊虫肆虐的荒原。现在，俄罗斯政府正通过一项好比当代版美国1862年《宅地法》(Homestead Act)的法案，把这片荒原许诺给想当拓荒先锋的公民。

“This is not really what I had in mind,” said Mr. Bugaev, who had traveled across seven time zones from St. Petersburg, Russia, to scout the possibilities for settlers in the country’s sparsely populated Far East, a territory roughly two-thirds the size of the United States.

“这里和我想的不一样，”布加耶夫说。他跨越了七个时区，从圣彼得堡来到人迹罕至的远东地区，查看在这里开垦定居的可能性。这片地区的面积约有美国的三分之二大。

The nine Far Eastern regions targeted for settlement in the government’s land giveaway, which began on June 1, encompass more than a third of Russia but are home to only 6.1 million People. This is just 4 percent of the country’s population and compares with the 110 million Chinese living across the border in the three provinces that make up Manchuria.

俄罗斯政府自6月1日开始赠送位于远东九个行政区的土地供人屯垦，面积涵盖了超过三分之一的俄罗斯国土，却仅有610万居民，只占人口总数的4%。在国界另一边的中国东北三省则有1.1亿人口。

Mr. Bugaev is a dedicated, if largely sedentary, Cossack, a centuries-old fraternity of Slavic warriors, freebooters and freedom-loving rebels. A romantic throwback to earlier generations of Cossacks who settled and secured the borders of the Russian empire.

尽管很少走动，布加耶夫仍是个执着的哥萨克人；几百年来，哥萨克人是斯拉夫勇士的一支，是一群江洋大盗与爱好自由的反叛军。他有一颗浪漫怀旧的心，想要重返早期哥萨克人定居并保卫俄罗斯帝国边疆的生活。

For years, he said, he had dreamed of Russia embracing, or rather re-embracing, the pioneer spirit, and he was delighted by the Kremlin’s backing of a program meant to reassert the country’s manifest destiny as a continent-straddling power.

他说自己多年来梦想着俄罗斯能焕发出（或者说重新焕发）开拓者的精神。这项屯垦计划的背后有克里姆林宫的支持，意在重新确立俄罗斯作为跨洲强国的天命。

All the same, he conceded that not many Russians living in the European side of Russia, who dream of a house in London or Paris, not a shack in a swamp near China, share his zeal for a new life in wild eastern regions that many associate with labor camps and convicts.

尽管如此，他也承认，住在欧洲那半边国土上的俄国人大多梦想着一套伦敦或巴黎的房子，而不是中俄边境的沼泽边上的破木屋，他们很少会像他一样有着去东部蛮荒地寻找新生活的热情；很多人会把那样的生活和劳改营与罪犯联系起来。

“Most people these days don’t want an adventure,” he said.

“这年头，大多数人都不愿意冒险了。”他说。

The Russian government, however, is intent on proving otherwise and on giving some substance to a command by President Vladimir V. Putin in 2013 that the development of Siberia and the Far East must be “our national priority for the entire 21st century.”

然而，俄罗斯政府想要证明事实并非如此，并希望总统普京在2013年发出的一道命令能得到一定程度的落实，也就是西伯利亚与远东地区的发展必须是“我国在整个21世纪的首要任务”。

How to get people to settle in the Far East is a question that has preoccupied and confounded Russian rulers since the establishment of a Russian naval base on the Pacific Ocean at Okhotsk in the 17th century. Cossacks, convicts and desperate peasants have often been the only takers.

自从俄国领导人17世纪在太平洋沿岸的鄂霍次克(Okhotsk)建立海军基地以来，如何让人民来到远东地区定居便一直是让他们既挂心又头痛的课题。哥萨克人、罪犯与绝望的农民，常是唯一愿意去的人。

In Communist times, labor camps, heavy investment in remote industrial sites and the construction of a second railroad across Siberia and the Far East revived the eastward flow of people. But this ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and residents began to drift away. A population of more than eight million dwindled by about two million.

在共产党时代，劳改营、对偏远工业区的大笔投资，还有第二条西伯利亚大铁路的兴建，人口东迁再次兴起。然而人潮在1991年苏联解体后停止了。远东地区居民开始外流，原本有800多万的人口减少了约200万。

Russia’s Ministry for the Development of the Far East, the agency managing this latest development gambit, cited a survey it commissioned, saying that 20 percent of Russians would be ready to move east if given free land. Younger Russians, the ministry said, were even more enthusiastic, with more than 50 percent expressing an interest in heading east to take advantage of the offer — one free hectare, about two and a half acres, a person.

俄罗斯远东地区发展部(Ministry for the Development of the Far East)负责最近这次大开发。该部援引本部门指派的调查的结果，声称若能无偿获得土地的话，有20%的俄罗斯人愿意迁往远东。该部还说，年轻一代俄罗斯人的意愿甚至更强，有超过50%的受访者表示，为了每人一公顷免费土地的悬赏——他们有兴趣东进。

But as often happens in Russia, grandiose hopes and plans have run far ahead of the reality on the ground, where bureaucrats, appalling weather and immense distances conspire to smother the Kremlin’s ambitions.

不过就像在俄罗斯经常发生的，眼下现实与宏图大愿总有很大差距。官僚体系、严酷的天气，还有千山万水的距离，加在一起扼制着克里姆林宫的雄心。

“It is all pie in the sky,” said Vladimir V. Mishchenko, the head of the Khankaisky district, one of nine pilot areas chosen by Moscow to test the free land program. He complained that the whole thing had been dreamed up by people in Moscow who had no understanding of the Far East but needed to show the Kremlin that they were doing something.

“这都是画饼充饥，”兴凯斯基区区长弗拉基米尔‧V‧米申科(Vladimir V. Mishchenko)说。兴凯斯基是莫斯科选中的九个免费屯垦试行区之一。米申科抱怨道，这整个计划都是莫斯科官员凭空想出来的，那些官员完全不了解远东地区，却又要让克林姆林宫看到他们没有闲着。

For the moment, the free land is restricted to small areas, like the Khankaisky area around Kamen-Rybolov, an isolated settlement north of Vladivostok, and is open only to Russians already living in the Far East.

目前该计划免费发放的土地仅限于小片区域，像是卡缅雷博洛夫邻近的兴凯斯基，这是海参崴北面的一块孤立屯垦区，仅开放给已在远东居住的俄罗斯人。

Starting in February, however, all Russian citizens can apply, and Mr. Bugaev wants to make sure he is ready to “help save Russia.”

不过，所有俄罗斯公民从2月开始都能申请免费土地了。布加耶夫想确定自己已做好“帮助拯救俄罗斯”的准备。

At the start of his scouting mission, after a nine-hour flight to Vladivostok from Moscow, he found his hotel packed with Chinese, mostly tourists. Donning his Cossack fur hat, he declared his mission even more urgent than he had thought.

他从莫斯科乘飞机九个小时抵达海参崴，开始土地勘查的任务，并发现他落脚的旅馆里满是中国人，其中大多数是游客。头戴哥萨克毛皮帽子的布加耶夫宣称，这项任务比他原本想象的更为迫切。

He set off the next day for Kamen-Rybolov to inspect the land on offer, driving for hours in torrential rain through sodden taiga and mostly empty villages.

布加耶夫隔天便向卡缅雷博洛夫进发，勘查那些可供领取的土地。他在倾盆大雨中开了好几小时的车，穿过浸泡在水气中的针叶林与罕有人烟的村庄。

Undaunted, he said he thought there were enough hardy souls ready to join his organization, the Far Eastern Hectare Social Movement, a private outfit set up in St. Petersburg to drum up interest in the free land program and to organize new settlements.

他毫不气馁，认为应该有些足够吃苦耐劳的人准备要加入他的远东一顷地社会运动(Far Eastern Hectare Social Movement)组织；这个在圣彼得堡创立的私人团体是为了提高众人对免费屯垦地计划的兴趣，并帮助组织移民定居。

Its website explains that it is possible to be a pioneer without even leaving home, at least to start with. People can simply apply for free land and pool what they get so a larger plot can be developed by a few adventurous souls.

该团体的官网解释道，大家不用离乡背井也能当个拓荒者，至少刚开始时这是没问题的。只要去申请免费土地，再把分到的地块集中形成大片土地，就能让少数有冒险精神的人先去开疆辟土。

If this works, those who contribute land but stay behind in St. Petersburg can move east later, after most of the hard work is done.

这种做法要是成功的话，那些贡献土地却留在圣彼得堡后方的人，就能等到大部分苦差事都了结以后再东徙了。

“Virtually nobody wants to come out here right now,” Mr. Bugaev conceded, complaining that the available plots — about 12,000 square yards a person — cannot possibly support sustainable agriculture or any other business venture. (American pioneers got more than 60 times that amount — 160 acres — under the Homestead Act.)

“几乎没人想要现在就进驻远东，”布加耶夫承认。他也抱怨目前可申请的放领地——每人约1.2万平方码（约1公顷）——不可能作为可持续农业的用地，或用于任何其他商业投资。（从前《宅地法》拨给美国拓荒者的土地是这个面积的60倍以上，约合65公顷。）

The Russian plan has been derided as a dreamy patriotic stunt cooked up by Kremlin image makers or a scam that will end up enriching officials, who have the right to take back the land after five years if they decide development targets have not been met.

俄罗斯当局的这番盘算，被讥为克林姆林宫为粉饰形象所炮制的爱国烟雾弹，亦有可能是让官员最终得以中饱私囊的骗局，因为他们要是认为预定发展目标没达成，有权在五年后收回土地。

The Kremlin, however, has thrown its weight behind the program, set in motion this summer with a blitz of publicity on state news media presenting the Far East as an El Dorado of opportunity, and the start of a government website that allows citizens to view plots of land and make online applications.

然而克里姆林宫大力支持，从今年夏天开始在官营媒体上发动全面宣传，把远东地区说成是遍地黄金的机遇之地，还设立了一个政府网站让俄国公民查看放领地，进行在线申请。

The official website went down as soon as it was unveiled, a mishap that Aleksei A. Navalny, the renowned anticorruption campaigner, said was probably a deliberate malfunction engineered by officials so they could grab the best land for themselves.

不过这个网站才刚上线就关闭了。知名反腐倡议人士阿列克谢·A·纳瓦尔尼(Aleksei A. Navalny)表示，这很有可能是官员故意安排的技术故障，好让他们能将最好的土地占为己有。

Mr. Navalny, in a report last month, noted that coveted plots on the shore of a picturesque lake outside Kamen-Rybolov had been snapped up by the time the website started working again. Yan P. Ovodenko, a local official, denied that the lakeside plots had all been taken.

纳瓦尔尼在上月发表的一份报导中指出，在卡缅雷博洛夫外围一个风景如画的湖边上，有一些诱人放领地，而这些土地在该网站重新上线时，都已被抢占一空。当地官员宜安‧P‧欧沃丹科(Yan P. Ovodenko)则否认这些湖畔放领地已被全数认领出去。

A more serious blow to Mr. Bugaev’s hopes was delivered by Mr. Mishchenko, the district head. While the area might look empty, he explained, nearly all the land is already owned or at least claimed by somebody. And even if Mr. Bugaev were to get allotted land, developing it would require cooperation from 22 different government agencies responsible for enforcing a thicket of rules and regulations.

兴凯斯基区区长米申科又给布加耶夫的盼望加上更沉重的一击。米申科解释道，这块地方看来虽然十分空旷，不过所有土地几乎都已经有主人了，或者至少已经有人声称拥有产权。就算布加耶夫能取得政府发放的土地，想要开始开发，还要得到负责执行各类繁复规章的22个行政机关的协调行动才行。

“The water code, you have to abide by it; town planning code, you have to abide by it; land code, you have to abide by it; border area rules, you have to abide by them; prescriptions of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance, you have to abide by them; forest regulation, you have to abide by it,” the district chief said.

“水资源法、城镇规划法、土地法、边境区域规章、联邦动植物监测局的指示、森林管制条例......这些规矩你全都得照着走。”这位区长表示。

Of the 460 people who have applied since June 1, Mr. Mishchenko said, 390 have been rejected outright because they failed to provide the necessary information. In all, only four people, all from Vladivostok, have thus far secured plots.

米申科又说，自6月1号起已提交申请的460人当中，有390人因没有提供必要信息，已直接被拒绝了。目前全部申请人里只有四位获得了放领地，且他们都来自海参崴。

“For any meaningful agriculture, you need 5,000 hectares to start off,” Mr. Mishchenko said. “And those lands don’t exist. They’ve been snapped up a long time ago.”

“想要进行任何有意义的农耕，一开始总需要5000公顷的土地，”米申科表示，“而这样的土地并不存在。它们早在很久以前就被抢光了。”

Undeterred by his initial finding in Khankaisky district, Mr. Bugaev pressed on. A Cossack leader in the regional administration in Vladivostok, Oleg Melnikov, assured him that the land giveaway was on track and faced no serious problems.

布加耶夫并没有因为最初在凯兴斯基发现的情况而受挫，他继续向前推进。在海参崴地区政府工作的一位哥萨克领导欧雷格‧梅尼可夫(Oleg Melnikov)向他保证，土地发放计划运作如常，并没有遭遇任何严重问题。

A local company involved in agriculture also liked Mr. Bugaev’s plans for an updated version of collective farming and urged him to focus on trying to find people in St. Petersburg ready to apply for plots of land.

一个涉足农业的当地公司也对布加耶夫的改进版集体农业计划感兴趣，并敦促布加耶夫把精力放在在圣彼得堡寻找有志申请土地的人上面。

“I think this will all work out,” Mr. Bugaev said, warily eyeing Chinese tourists crowded in the lobby of his Vladivostok hotel. “This is not just for adventure but to save Russia.”

“我想一切会水到渠成，”布加耶夫在海参崴的旅馆里这么说，同时向大厅里成群的中国游客投以警惕的眼光。“这不只是为了冒险，也是为了拯救俄罗斯。”