Stupin, Ilya. “Braverman’s Land Patrol” (“Zemel’nii patrul’ Bravermana”), Ekspert 41, 26 October 2009, 28-34. 28 June 2010 http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.middlebury.edu/browse/doc/20828585.

An examination of the federal government’s practice of distributing seized land in auctions to developers via the Residential Construction Development assistance fund (RZhS Fund).  The new government organization, an initiative of Medvedev’s aimed at creating a renewed market for construction, has begun seizing land from agricultural institutes on grounds of underuse.  Developers in Tyumen’, Kirov, Cheboksarakh, and Kursk have already begun leasing these lands, promised the opportunity to privatize the land after 9-11 years of use.  The article criticizes the RZhS Fund institution as short-sighted, as it is so far unclear as to who will consist the buyers and renters in this new, real-estate-flooded residential building market.  Although, both RZhS Fund head Aleksandr Braverman and construction business heads credit the Fund’s creation with the streamlining of bureaucratic processes and incentivizing of developers’ building-up and eventually privatizing the plots.  Controls on where developers can set rent rates, as well as insufficient budgetary funds allocated for the RZhS count among the Fund’s problems.

Quoting from an interview with Kirov Oblast governor, Nikita Belikh, the second half of the article examines what may be the RZhS’s greatest weakness: a lack of a central region development plan and poor cooperation with the regions in which these infrastructure-less lands are being auctioned.