The Russian president said he wanted to transform Russky island - about 5,800 miles from Moscow - into a giant holiday resort capable of hosting an international conference.

The island is infamous in Russia as the scene of a gruesome national scandal. In 1992 four soldiers serving on its isolated garrison starved to death. Dozens of others were taken to hospital suffering from starvation. Their commanders had failed for months to send them anything to eat.

Mr Putin said a resort on Russky island off the Pacific naval port of Vladivostok would provide an ideal venue for Russia to host a 2012 summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation bloc.

Concern is growing in Moscow about Russia's far east region, which borders China and the Pacific. The territory has already lost most of its inhabitants and is in danger of being rapidly overwhelmed by China, economically if not militarily.

"We have a unique opportunity to create a very interesting recreation area on Russky ... for those who love the ocean," Mr Putin said after a surprise visit to Vladivostok on Saturday.

A new military complex, hotels, bars and a water sports centre could give the area a much-needed boost, he said. Yesterday, however, observers said that tourists from the rest of Russia were unlikely to travel to the island, a once top-secret military base.

It would take visitors at least a week to reach Vladivostok from Moscow on the Trans-Siberian railway. So far, Russia has no budget flights and the nine-hour journey by plane costs at least £250. Most Russian tourists rarely stray further than the region surrounding the capital or the mountainous Urals - and prefer to jet off instead to Egypt or Turkey.

A recent visitor reported finding scrawny cows munching rubbish, squat tower blocks of blistered cement, an erratic ferry service and wheel-less Ladas rusting in the salty air.

"The far east is one of Russia's most troubled regions. It's not heavily populated. The population continues to fall," Mark Urnov, the head of the Moscow-based thinktank Expertise told the Guardian yesterday.

"It's not Moscow-oriented and is surrounded by fast-developing China. If Russia doesn't develop the far east soon it could lose it, at least de facto."

Mr Putin's security council met in December to discuss a plan for the economic revival of the region, which included developing transport infrastructure and local industries. "All these steps should encourage new investment, contracts, kick-start the development of the region and thus strengthen its competitiveness and expand its ties with the Asia-Pacific region," Mr Putin said.