Summerfolk

Alongside traditional summer-only dachas there appeared a new type of year-round out-of-town house that was often called a kottedzh to emphasize its Western pedigree. The size and degree of comfort of such dwellings varied enormously. Many of them, contrary to general perceptions, were extremely modest, lacking such basic amenities as electricity and standing on the same 600-square-meter plots that held the dachas built by individual families in the 1950s and 1960s. They differed only in that they were normally made of brick rather than wood, had two stories, and had slightly more room inside (the average size of a winterized dacha, according to the fullest survey of the mid-1990s, was 44.6 square meters, as opposed to just over 30 square meters for summer-only constructions).52 At the other end of the market were the “New Russian” mansions beloved of glossy magazines. Many of these houses were hidden behind lofty fences in locations favored by the Soviet elite; but the more elaborate of them might also stand, incongruously, in old settlements alongside wooden shacks rather than in new ghettos for the superrich. Various attempts have been made to account for the apparent indifference to visible disparities of this kind: some say the owners of spacious villas want to display their wealth as publicly as possible; others assert that their choice of location is dictated by the impossibility of obtaining planning permission to build elsewhere. The second explanation is, to my mind, improbable: inasmuch as many New Russian houses in preexisting settlements themselves infringe multiple planning regulations, it appears that buying off the regional authorities is not so very difficult. Perhaps the reason is simply that New Russians are in a desperate hurry to convert their wealth into immovable property.

This incursion of new money certainly changed the atmosphere of many settlements. It had the effect of quickly redistributing land, as long-standing residents of prestigious settlements such as Peredelkino found new neighbors in unwelcome proximity. Often the new houses were built on formerly sacrosanct wooded land or green fields that had been signed away at a stroke of the bureaucrat’s pen, but in some cases large Soviet-era plots were subdivided and portions sold off by owners impoverished by the collapse of the old regime and devoid of any better source of income. The arrival of New Russian kottedzhi also brought a reassertion of the dacha’s leisure and ornamental functions. Gardening firms, for example, noted an increase in orders for junipers and cypresses, plants that were hardly suited to the harsh Russian climate but were nonetheless symbolic of a new lifestyle.53

A New Russian dacha at Mozhaiskoe, southwest of St. Petersburg. The architectural pretensions of this house are undermined by its grubby surroundings. This is hardly a scenic spot, nor is it secluded: the dacha stands in full view of the local train stop.