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.

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.

“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.

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.

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

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.