Russian Blog
This is a blog by JustRussian about learning Russian. You will find useful tips for learning Russian, Russian courses available in London, information about Russian culture and links to websites with information for students of Russian.
Russian dachas
By Vlada 21 July 07
Just as I realised that the summer is half gone I thought it was time to introduce a seasonal theme to my blog. Never mind the Russian lessons… Schools are closed, courses can wait till September. What do Russians do in summer? They go to the Dacha!
In my childhood, Dacha was a magical word. It meant a whole world of wonderful things: freedom from school and homework, sleeping and playing as much as you want, eating tasty juicy things straight from trees and the ground (often unwashed), chasing furry animals around, getting a chance to stroke scary huge horses and cows, swimming in the river, getting lost in the forest etc. So when the school year began in September, I used to count the days left till the end of May. Yes, Russian kids have a 3 month holiday in summer! Now of course, as a grown up person, I understand that keeping a dacha is hard work: all that gardening, travelling, maintenance…
So what exactly is a dacha?
It’s a country retreat for a city family, usually used during summer months or at weekends. It can be owned or rented. It can be as large or small as a family can afford or prefer (a whole huge house with all mod cons or part of a small house with basic facilities), but it must have a plot of land with a kitchen garden, some fruit trees and flowers. Almost all Russians have a strong country connection (it is historically an agricultural country!) and understand that it’s much healthier for the kids and adults to spend time in summer in fresh air, rather than being locked up in a city flat somewhere on the 14th floor. Those kids lucky enough to have a live-in retired babushka (grandmother), stay at the dacha all through summer. Those who aren’t, come to the dacha at weekends with their parents. For grown-ups, a dacha is a perfect place to relax and unwind, to invite their friends for a barbecue, or a party, to go fishing, walking, mushroom picking etc.
How come most families can afford to have dachas?
Owning or renting a dacha is a tradition that goes back a couple of hundred years, so it’s very much part of the Russian lifestyle and culture. Most dachas are inherited within a family, they were given out for free in the Soviet times, distributed by the state according to one’s social status and occupation. Those are situated in special dacha settlements all around big cities. Some dachas are real country houses bought by city people, some are rented for a couple of months in summer. Often dacha owners started with just a piece of land and gradually built a house on it. More recently, in post-Soviet times, dachas have been bought and sold like any other real estate. Of course not all families can afford one, but most have some kind of access to a dacha – it can be shared with family, friends, or it can be an invitation from relatives in the country to come and stay.
All that said, I know a couple of people who hate dacha life and choose not to have a dacha.
What’s the inside of a typical dacha like?
I am afraid, a typical dacha is a traditional dumping ground for all unwanted stuff that is chucked out of a city flat. Or is it just my family?! Every time I come to my parents’ dacha, it’s like a trip down memory lane: here is a sofa on which I slept when I was a child, there is an “antique” radio-stereo system from the 70s, in the room next door there is a half-dead telly that brings back memories of watching the news during the collapse of the Soviet union. But the most amazing artefact is the fridge, which was bought in 1966 and is still working very well! Most dachas are not very smart places, they are for relaxation, for walking around in dirty country shoes, for not being bothered…
Some houses have running water and proper plumbing, some don’t, in which case there is an outside loo and shower. Summers in Russia are hot so lots of people have showers outside, with water heated by the sun.
What’s the outside of a typical dacha like?
The typical size of a dacha plot is 5 “sotkas” (a sotka is one hundredth of a hectare) which is not very big, but enough to have a vegetable patch (potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, strawberries – all the usual stuff), bushes of berries alongside the fence (black and red currants, raspberries, gooseberries), a few fruit trees (apples, pears, plums, cherries), a shed, an outside toilet, a garage for those with cars, a table for eating al fresco, a couple of benches. Perhaps a place for a hammock or a swing. In the old days, people grew a lot of fruit and veg, made a lot of preserves for the winter and took “food production” at the dacha seriously. Now lots of people don’t bother to do it any more, so vegetable patches are being replaced with English-style lawns and flower beds. Around Moscow, anyway.
How far can a dacha be from someone’s city flat and how do people get there?
The closer a country house is to the city, the more expensive and “urbanised” it is. It can be as close as a 20-minute train ride. But most dachas are about 70-100 kilometres from the city, so a couple of hours away. Some people I know have their dachas in remote villages, as far from Moscow as the Volga river – there you can have much more space and it’s more “authentic” and rural, with proper forests and rivers. On Saturday morning and Sunday evening in summer all the suburban trains are full of people in scruffy clothes, with plants, pots, dogs and cats in bags. They are going to the dacha! The traffic jams on motorway become horrendous, and getting in and out of the city becomes a nightmare.
What happens to dachas in winter?
They stand locked up and deserted most of the time. The owners sometimes come to check if everything is OK, get jars of jam and stewed fruit out of the basement, to take back to the city. Normally, dachas are not centrally heated, they only have small stoves and electric heaters. However, there are “winter dachas” – proper country houses with central heating and all mod cons, lived in all year round.
And finally, on a less positive note: with all the pleasures of dacha living there is one big pain – being bitten by mosquitoes! People in England don’t realise how lucky they are not to have these creatures from hell all through summer! The beasts come out at night in their millions to ruin your life. So you have to arrange a complicated defence system: nets on the windows, fumigators, sprays, turning off the light in the room not to attract them etc.
Come to Moscow in summer, in good weather at a weekend, and you’ll find the city half-empty – everyone will be gone to the dacha!