Russia has given away free hectares of land to three families in the country’s Amur region. In an initiative to develop the country’s remote Far East the Russian government has approved the first applications under the country’s free land scheme. The region’s Arkharinsky district which borders China was chosen as the pilot area for the scheme where any Russian citizen could apply for a free tract of land. RT reports: “The first three applications were received from residents in the area, which for many years engaged in beekeeping. District authorities have already approved the layout of the land, and property boundaries have been registered,” a spokesperson for the local property authorities told Interfax. Another two applications are being processed; one of them is a collective application from three families also involved in beekeeping. The Arkharinsky district is located at the junction of the border with China and with Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region. The district is crossed by the Trans-Siberian railroad and the Chita-Khabarovsk federal highway. The area has 50,000 hectares of agricultural land and 500,000 hectares of forest. The governor of Yakutia, another region included in the program, announced that in addition to the hectare of land offered by the state, [...]