Dacha wanna be Russian?
«Единственное, что я себе позволяю – иногда после работы
на час, другой заезжать к себе в деревню подышать воздухом,
физически поработать. Сюда приезжают друзья, с которыми
я могу поговорить не о работе, а знаете, и ни о чем, и обо
всем…». - Виктор Маслов
"The one thing I allow myself - sometimes after work, for an hour
or so, I stop by my dacha in the country to breathe the air, do
physical labor. Friends arrive there, and I can talk with them not
about work and, you know, not about that, but about everything. Victor Maslov, Governor of Smolensk Oblast' (pictured left, at his
dacha).
A History of the Russian Dacha
It’s Дачный сезон (dacha season) in Russia. Dachas have existed
for centuries, surviving revolutions, purges, and falls. They remain
an integral, if at times hard-to-define part of Russian life; many
Russians scoff at them, many hold them dear, and many, oddly, do
both. Yet "dacha season" remains so widespread that stores
announce Распродажи в дачный сезон (dacha season sales - for
which building and gardening equipment are discounted) in ads
nearly as large and pervasive as those for "back-to-school" in
America.
So what is a "dacha?" The word has made significant inroads into
English because, although it can theoretically be translated as
"summer house," or "cottage" the dacha is not necessarily that
comfortable, leisurely symbol of affluence, or that picturesque image
of country living. A dacha usually lays a 1-2 hour local train
(электрички - elektrichki) ride away. These elektrichki are usually
overcrowded with people of every social class and, we have seen,
the occasional livestock. For those fortunate enough to own a car (it
is common to have a dacha, but no car), the trip can take twice as
long, as the roads are not built to handle the mass exodus that occurs
every weekend.
To look back in time, the term "dacha" was born of early
medieval Russian. It meant "a gift given publicly," (Публичный
дар) and later came to specifically mean "property given and used in
feudal fashion" (имущество, переданное и используемое пофеодальному). A dacha could include land, houses, outbuildings,
serfs (serf = Крепостный крестьянин), etc. It was the main unit of
property right up until emancipation radically changed property
concepts in 1861. The definition of "dacha" changed as well and in
modern Russian this feudal conceptualization is better served by
"поместье" (manor) rather than "dacha."
Peter the Great also altered the meaning, even before
emancipation. After the Great Northern War, armed with expanses
of new land and a desire to create a "Road to Versailles" that would
run from St. Petersburg to the royal dacha of Peterhof, Peter gave
out tracts bordering the Gulf of Finland, instructing the recipients to
build grand houses and sculpted gardens. These new dachas would
be used primarily not for agriculture, but social entertaining. The
owners were expected to maintain city residences as well.
As the real estate market liberalized, and as dissatisfaction with
living in the bustling, expensive, and dirty St. Petersburg grew,
owning a dacha became popular among the new “middle class” of
bureaucrats and businessmen. Hence, the word actually came to
mean: "summer house." A building boom ensued, forming
communities of dachas. The craze even hit the working class, who
rented rooms or "corners" (углы) in other people’s dachas for a few
rubles for the summer. By 1850, дачники (dachniki - "summer
residents") became a staple of Russian literature, often satirized as
lazy or, alternatively, revered as Russia’s newly cultured class.
This uncertain cultural status would be important after the
October Revolution, when many people took the communists at their
word that land should be communal. A lot of people marched into
the countryside and built small dachas with garden plots wherever
someone else was not already living. The reason for this is clear: the
First World War had caused starvation, and people were just trying
to survive.
Steven Lovell, in his award-winning Summerfolk, a History of
the Dacha, understates this unofficial and undocumented process,
but it seems to have not been uncommon. He states that a fair
number of dachas were officially registered well after their
construction. There are also many Muscovites who claim their
family dachas were built in this manner.
The main controversy revolved around whether the dacha should
be part of the bourgeois past or the communist future. Although a
policy was never officially spelled out, dachas were placed under the
control of district committees known as raiispolkomi
(Райисполкомы or Районные исполнительные комитеты "Regional Executive Committees"), and thus effectively legitimized
but with restrictions: each family was allowed only one dacha and
"lordly" dachas (with running water or large stoves) were forcibly
nationalized.
As more individuals and unions sought dacha space, even
outbuildings were re-classed as dachas. Several country estates were
turned into Дома Отдыха (Doma Otdixa). Many of these "houses of
rest," which can be understood as a sort of communal dacha, are still
state-operated and inexpensive. New construction was entrusted
mainly to housing cooperatives.
Dachas also became a political tool. For example, funding to
build the writers’ colony at Peredelkino was freed shortly after the
Union of Soviet Writers adopted an official, state-friendly genre.
Afterwards, only writers in good standing with the state received
dachas there. Political meetings from the local to the national level
were often charged with accusations of блат (blat - a Russian word
referring to systematized bribe-taking and favor-playing), in
connection with dacha allocations. Recently, Alexei Pankin, the
opinion page editor for Izvestia, even published a piece in the
Moscow Times entitled "The Dacha Theory of History," in which he
asserts that all major political shakeups in Russia are preceded by
infighting about the control of dachas.
Interestingly, demand continued to swell and the dacha solidified
as a cultural icon despite that most were poorly built, even
unsanitary structures. They were and largely are "summer houses"
because most lack heating and are thus unusable during the winter.
Many westerners might also find it strange that Russians would
commute from the city to the countryside (the opposite from the
western practice) in order to visit such places regularly.
As the Russian economy expands, many young Russians are
beginning to think of a dacha more as a summer home, as a place of
relative affluence where vacations are taken and gardening is
laughable. While a different word has yet replaced the small, rustic
dacha, these Russians will insist that they are connected almost
solely with elderly pensioners, who use them to bolster their meager
state-provided funds. While this seems to be not entirely the case,
the fact that the question "what is a dacha" will spark an argument is
interesting in and of itself.
But for many Russians, the dacha is still a simple home-awayfrom-home. Every weekend, many don large rubber boots
(резиновые сапоги) and weed and care for their vegetable patches.
They eat shashlik (a kind of barbeque on skewers), play outdoor
games, go for walks and just relax. At night, they retire to what
usually amounts to a simple wooden shack, often lacking running
water and electricity. To many, this is a "return to the soil," to their
roots and the ways of their forefathers. Although some scoff at this
ramshackle Russian tradition, both supporters and scoffers alike will
agree that the dacha is an important part of народность
(Russianness).
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