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Given the issuing in July 2014 of four presidential decrees abolishing the kolkhozes by the end of 2016, it is worthwhile reviewing the trend in land ownership under Belarusian law since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Belarus has followed an original path; it has, much more than Russia, preserved the USSR’s legal legacy. While claiming to be a market economy, it has maintained major restrictions on private property rights over the land. The combination, under the law, of a market orientation with the Soviet legal tradition is in line with the proclaimed determination to modernize the country and develop private property while contributing to the nation’s economic development. In fact, this claim by government authorities stems from two rhetorical sources: modernity (since property rights are formally recognized) and progress (since property rights are established for the purpose of a state-run economic development).