1. Introduction.
Both the Russian Constitution, adopted in 1993, and the Civil Code, adopted in 1994, uphold the right to own private property, which includes both land plots and buildings. Despite these guarantees, however, land reform was for a long time the subject of national political debate. Several proposed land codes worked their way through the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, only to have the President reject them, largely because these codes infringed, rather than defended, basic property rights. …
