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Dacha () attached to the house. The house is usually wooden or rarely brick and nearly always hand-built. In archaic Russian, the word 'dacha' used to mean 'something given' as 'dachas' were estates given to loyal vassals by the Tsar . The common term for a dacha farmer is 'dachnik' ( Russian : да́чник). HISTORY Dachas began to appear after World War II . The reasons for their appearance were on one side the desire of city people, all living in blocks of flats, to spend some time close to nature, and on the other side the need to grow vegetables. Such a need was caused by food shortages experienced due to Soviet agricultural policy. In the very beginning, dachas owned by common people were practically illegal. However, since there was no actual law limiting the existence of them, more people started to build them. In most instances they were built on unused plots of land near the owner's city. As time passed the number of dachniks had grown geometrically and they had been officially legalized. Legalization brought local government representatives in the form of so-called "Gardeners' Societies" (. In Soviet times prominent officials or cultural figures were granted rights to use state-owned vacation houses as part of their compensation package, though this right was revoked when the official was dismissed or went out of favor. To this day May Day holidays remain a feature of Russian life allowing urban residents, even of the largest cities, a long weekend to plant potatoes. There are no suitable state holidays to be used for the potato harvest, thus it is usually accomplished very quickly during a usual weekend. Some companies, especially the municipal ones, used to give their staff an extra weekend day specifically for that purpose. DACHA FARMING The dacha plots (usually not more than 600 sq. m) are too small to grow the needed amount of vegetables, thus sometimes they are also grown on separate dedicated plots of ground. In Soviet times and sometimes and now, such dedicated plots of ground often were made of the unused sections of agricultural fields owned by Collective Farms . Due to poverty and the lack of good equipment even relatively large plots of ground are often cultivated manually using a spade or a hayfork. In autumn the grown potatoes are gathered and transported to the city where they are stored either in specially dug Cellars usually located on unused plots of ground, or in personal automobile garages. The annual process of potato harvesting (and sometimes planting) is a significant (though rather dislikable) event in life of Russians. It is commonly called "to go for potatoes" (: ездить на поля). Though dacha farming is absolutely not obligatory, most Russians still prefer to grow vegetables themselves because of the excessive use of agrochemicals and low quality of the vegetables sold through markets and stores. The only acceptable alternative to such Post-Soviet form of farming is acquiring vegetables on numerous Russian Bazaar s called " Rynok s" ( Russian , sing.: ры́нок) where the products being sold are grown either by rural farmers or by other dacha farmers. The most common means of transportation for low- and middle-class people to get to their dachas, besides cars, is electric trains, colloquially called " Elektrichka " ( Russian , sing.: электри́чка). During summer and especially the planting and the harvest seasons, elektrichkas are often so filled with dachniks that it becomes hard to breathe inside the cars and even the cars' sliding doors can hardly be closed. GOSDACHAS Early in the Soviet times the state-owned vacation houses allotted for government members were called "''gosdachas''" ('s Administration continue to own numerous estates throughout the country, that are leased, often on non-market terms, to government officials. In modern times many Oligarch s live only at their dachas, so they make huge and very expensive houses sometimes comparable to palaces with different luxury decorations such as numerous statues, fountains, basins and even small woods, with construction costs often reaching several millions dollars with armed guard and sometimes several barriers around them. |
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