I am really grateful to all the authors of the letters I have received. Many of the messages were telling lots of new things and introducing me to facts and ideas I had never heard of before. Just one example - I have learned about dachas in Alaska. Visit the page and TYSHEE'S DACHA, it's well worth it!

Getting back on track... It looks like the time is just right for visiting the dacha again, two years after that first story, and let you know how dacha is doing in new Russia.

Still, on a summer weekend Moscow really is deserted. When a hot Saturday comes, you will see quite a few residents and visitors enjoying new fountains on Manezhnaya Square next to the Kremlin walls, but mostly the streets are unusually quiet. Even popular shopping areas get some rest, and the smog almost disappears from the air. The cars have left the city packed with families and their gardening stuff, and many of those who have no car left Moscow too by the local trains. More than a million of Moscow families has moved out of the city to spend the weekend at their dachas.

I will not repeat here the definition of the dacha, nor tell the brief history of the subject, all that is available in the old story. Let's better look for the changes and differences. One of the changes is hardly typical, rather it's my personal choice. Instead of using crowded trains, I prefer now to ride a mountain bike to the dacha. It takes two hours - so what? Those are two very pleasant hours after sitting at the keyboard all week long.

Even asphalt roads near the dacha are so different from the asphalt of the city streets. At one picturesque spot, the road comes to the bank of Bisserovo lake (photo on the left). In the morning, many fishermen here test their luck and feed the clouds of buzzing mosquitoes. It must be great to have such a lake within a walking distance from a dacha... And yes, there are many dachas around. But ours is a bit farther. Let’s move on.

And the flowers are also the same. There are as many flower-beds as before and their fragrant beauty decorates the dacha all summer long.

Zucchinis are tiny and the plants are still in bloom. The big things you saw in the old story will be ready by the beginning of a school year, in September. But now starts the season that all devoted dacha owners enjoy most of all. After the winter of preparations and plans, after the spring and early summer of planting and weeding, here comes the time when every week brings new rewards for love and caring. New vegetables, berries, and fruits are greeting dacha people every morning. Salad and raspberries, cucumbers and apples, tomatoes and beets, radish and carrots... You would not believe how long is the list of what Russians grow at their dachas! Do not look at the map and calculate how far north we are located by American standards. We (the country, not my family) would die of starvation in the years of Communist ruling if we had not learn how to grow almost everything anywhere in Russia.

But I promised to tell about the differences, not similarities... Is everything really unchanged? Well, in fact it is surprising how well dacha in general survived all the changes. But some differences are evident. In the fields where state farmers used to grow poor crops, expensive-looking brick houses have been built. Some foreign journalists call them "new Russians’ dachas", which is not correct.

Yes, many of these new houses are owned by those who became rich in the last few years, by "new Russians". But they are not dachas. New Russians decided to follow a western pattern and move from apartments to single family houses in the suburbs. Unlike dachas, these serious houses are designed and built in most cases as permanent residences, not summer houses. The land around is not used for growing a family food supply - there are lawns, and flowers, and sometimes even pools. Yes, some vegetables too, but for fun rather than for serious production.

By the way, many of these new houses stay unfinished. Many of those who started to build them went bankrupt, or got killed in gangster wars, or are now enjoying a prison cell instead of a suburb home... Life changes fast, and instant wealth frequently is gone overnight. Now fewer of these houses are constructed, and what seemed a fast development couple of years ago, now barely shows signs of growth. They are not new dachas... But dacha people are still quite unhappy with them because all this large scale construction work destroys favorite meadows, fields and forests where dacha folks used to relax or mushroom hunt.

On the other hand, when rich people move out of the city, some infrastructure follows them and becomes available to locals and to dacha folks. Small shops, gas stations, food markets became a natural part of small roads around Moscow, the roads that before simply led to the dachas. But before almost all supplies had to be brought from Moscow. Now you can buy a lot around. The small fish-processing factory outlet shown in the picture became popular among dacha people over the last years and brings serious money to the factory. It’s great to be able to get some freshly smoked eel or just a mackerel for an unexpected dacha party when too many guests arrive all of a sudden.

      Dacha

  My own decisions,
  Birds’ summer songs,
  Heat of the bright sun,
  Our favorite easy-climbing, old, dying tree.

  Smooth wood of polished tree branch,
  Young kids frolicking around,
  Calling friends to come out,
  Humorous jokes by me and them
  On the way to our favorite dump -
  Walking together, looking for dryuchkas*,
  Bottlecaps, unique glass bottles that we collect.

  Coming back in the heat of the sun
  Through the fields..
  Across the fence....
  Then wait for the others
  And cool off with the freezing water
  From the leaking water tower...
  And again - jokes with my friends!

Marina Stepanova,
Charlotte Ave. School, Nashua, NH

---------------------------------
*druchka - a local slang of dacha teens,
stands for a drink can ring. We, dull adults, throw them away,
the kids collect and enjoy. Marina has an awesome 
collection.

The world is getting smaller for them, the kids of new Russia. Not only Marina, but many of her dacha friends of the same age have been abroad, visited places and countries. Still, they all love the dacha. Why? JUst beacuse. For them, the place is full of poetry and special meaning. Here is another Marina's piece:

  Grass silently danced
  with the melody of the whistling wind,
  graceful as a swan.

    Okay... This second trip to the dacha was also a long one. But now it's time again to return. There are still no phones at the dachas, and therefore no chances to use the Net, and I need to check my e-mail and upload a new page. Life is busy even in the summer.

See you next time - here or on my other pages. Now it's time to jump in the saddle and ride 40 kilometers back before the highway is jammed with the cars of all those dacha families coming back home.

Andrey - asebrant@online.ru