His readiness to join the Kremlin’s land giveaway has caused dismay among some like-minded critics of the Kremlin. Appearing last year on Ekho Moskvy, a radio station popular with Russia’s liberal intelligentsia, he faced repeated questions about how a dogged foe of the authorities like himself could join the settlement project.

“I am not supporting Putin’s program,” he said. “I am using it. I’m doing this for myself.”

Aside from going online to apply for the land and filling in official forms testifying to his readiness to develop it, however, Mr. Lunin has so far done very little. He has hammered wooden stakes wrapped with red plastic tags into the frozen ground to mark the boundary of his territory but has done nothing substantial to develop it as required by the program’s rules.

He planned to start last summer but, with only a tent to shelter in during a long and violent storm, he fell ill and retreated to his rented apartment in Blagoveshchensk, the nearest city. He said he will try again this summer and has grand plans to one day grow his own food, cultivate fruit and vegetables for sale, and build a two-story wooden house next to a small lake at the property’s edge.

To do this, however, he needs money.

With a monthly salary of 7,000 rubles, around $106, from his day job in Blagoveshchensk as a technician, Mr. Lunin gets by with support from his wife, who has a better-paying job at a medical institute. But even with their combined wages, they still have nowhere near enough cash to buy the equipment and materials needed to develop their land.

Unless he does something soon, the authorities can take back his property. To demonstrate that he is making some small progress, Mr. Lunin plans to build a small hut once the snow melts this year to shelter in and, he hopes, keep covetous officials away until he can save enough to start building something more permanent.

Describing himself as an optimist despite his dyspeptic view of Russia and its leaders, he said he learned long ago to never lose hope, or let officials get him down.

“I was free under Brezhnev and am free under Putin,” he said. “I am free inside.”