Those Elusive Scouts.

The article discusses Russian peasant migration to Russian Siberia and the Russian Far East from the late-19th century to the mid-20th century, with focus given to the importance of the khodok, or scouts who traveled ahead of migrating groups to find land suitable for settlement, to the process. The author examines the way in which these scouts acted to promote the Russian imperial governments' territorial expansion efforts and helped to connect settlers with government administrative officials, particularly those of the Russian Resettlement Administration, and local officials associated with the zemstvo.