Dacha
A dacha (Belarusian, Ukrainian and Russian: дача, IPA: [ˈdatɕə] ⓘ) is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of post-Soviet countries, including Russia.
As regulations severely restricted the size and type of dacha buildings for ordinary people during the Soviet period, permitted features such as large attics or glazed verandas became extremely widespread and often oversized.
[8] The first dachas in Russia began to appear during the 17th century, initially referring to small estates in the country that were given to loyal vassals by the tsar.
[1] During the Age of Enlightenment, Russian aristocracy used their dachas for social and cultural gatherings, which were usually accompanied by masquerade balls and firework displays.
Some were converted into vacation homes for factory workers, while others, usually of better quality, were distributed among the prominent functionaries of the Communist Party and the newly emerged cultural and scientific elite.
[3][9] In the years before and after World War II, cultivation of garden crops on dacha plots was substantial, because of the failure of the centrally planned Soviet agricultural programme to supply enough fresh produce.
The gardeners' partnership received the right to permanent use of land exclusively for agricultural purposes and permission to connect to public electrical and water supply networks.
[16] In 1958, yet another form of organisation was introduced, a cooperative for dacha construction (дачно-строительный кооператив, dachno-stroytelniy kooperativ), which recognised the right of an individual to build a small house on the land leased from the government.
[19] Tracts between lines of dacha land plots are usually unimproved or improved with crushed stone, and narrow (often about 6 m (20 ft) between fences) enough that two cars can hardly pass each other by.
[citation needed] Dachas also started to be found in other Eastern Bloc countries, especially in East Germany (where it remains quite current even after German reunification), and in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
In these hard times potatoes grown in garden plots saved many people from hunger, and fruit and berries helped prevent vitamin deficiency.
The means of transportation for people to get to their dachas, besides cars, are "water trams", buses, and electric trains (colloquially called "elektrichka").
[citation needed] They therefore are too small to grow any large amount of fruits and vegetables, thus sometimes they are also grown on separate dedicated plots of ground nearby.
[4][22] In autumn the grown potatoes and other crops are gathered and transported to the city where they are stored in cellars, dugouts (usually located on unused plots of ground), or in personal automobile garages.
Popular vegetables and herbs are potato, cucumber, zucchini, pumpkin, tomato, carrot, red bell peppers (capsicum), beetroot, cabbage, cauliflower, radish, turnip, onion, garlic, dill, parsley, rhubarb, sorrel, papaver, earth apple, horseradish and others.
[citation needed] The state-owned vacation houses allotted for government officials, academicians, military personnel, and other VIPs are called "gosdachas" (госдача, short for государственная дача gosudarstvennaya dacha— "state dacha").
[citation needed] Gosdachas in Komarovo and Peredelkino, Zhukovka, Barvikha, and Usovo and Rublyovka in Moscow are populated by many Soviet-era intellectuals and artists.
[citation needed] Russian President Vladimir Putin has a dacha in the Karelian Isthmus, as part of a cooperative society called Ozero,[24] and one in Sochi.
[3][29] These new symbols of prosperity are designed by professional architects, usually in eclectic style—that older dachniks look down upon as reflecting the nouveau-riche tastes of their owners—and feature ostentatious items such as marble statues, fountains and exotic plants.
[36] In 2002, the United States citizen Yakov Tilipman, who was representing the interests of the "Kremlyovskaya group", was shot in the protected gardening association "Yagodka" (Russian: Ягодка, lit.
[37][38][39] In 2008, robbers in camouflage uniforms climbed over a fence and made their way into the dacha of the TV host Aleksandr Tsekalo in Krasnogorsk, where his relatives were tied up and robbed.
