Summerfolk

zagorodnyi dom out-of-town house

zemstvo (pl. zemstva) elected rural assembly, local government (in the period 1864–1917)

Abbreviations

AHR

American Historical Review

B&E

Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ izd. Brokgauza i Efrona

, 41 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1890–1904)

BSE

Bol’shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia

DSK

Dachno-stroitel’nyi kooperativ

JfGO

Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas

Kr

Krokodil

LG

Literaturnaia gazeta

LOGAV

Leningradskii oblastnoi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv v g. Vyborge

ML

Moskovskii listok

PG

Peterburgskaia gazeta

PL

Peterburgskii listok

PLL

Pargolovskii letnii listok

PSZ

Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii

, 3 ser. (St. Petersburg, 1830–1911)

RGASPI

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi informatsii

RGIA

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv

SEER

Slavonic and East European Review

SIu

Sovetskaia iustitsiia

SP

Sotsialisticheskii prigorod

SPb ved

Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti

SPP RSFSR

Sobranie postanovlenii pravitel’stva RSFSR

SPP SSSR

Sobranie postanovlenii pravitel’stva SSSR

SR

Slavic Review

SZ

Sotsialisticheskaia zakonnost’

TsGAMO

Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Moskovskoi oblasti

TsGA SPb

Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Sankt-Peterburga

TsGIA SPb

Tsentral’nyi gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv Sankt-Peterburga

TsIAM

Tsentral’nyi istoricheskii arkhiv Moskvy

TsMAM

Tsentral’nyi munitsipal’nyi arkhiv Moskvy

VKG

Vecherniaia krasnaia gazeta

VM

Vecherniaia Moskva

ZhT-ZhS

Zhilishchnoe tovarishchestvo—zhilishche i stroitel’stvo

Petersburg and surrounding area. This map includes many of the dacha places mentioned in the text. It is far from comprehensive, however. Dacha settlements can be found at almost every stop on the railway lines out of Petersburg as well as in many more remote parts of the region.

Moscow and surrounding area. This map includes the four railway lines that have been most influential in the history of the Moscow dacha. The other routes—northwest toward Riga, north toward Savelovo, southwest toward Kiev, east toward Nizhnii Novgorod, south toward Kursk and Volgograd—have also played their part, and are now densely overgrown with dacha and garden settlements. The first of these lines to be completed was the Nikolaevskaia in 1851; the latest—to Riga and to Savelovo—became operative in the early twentieth century.

Introduction

The subject of this book requires less introduction than many topics in European history, since “dacha” is that rare creature: a Russian term that has gained a firm foothold in the English language. Its impact has, moreover, gone well beyond lexicography. The word has left numerous traces in the imagination of the anglophone world. It may conjure up the summer houses of Chekhov’s stories, or the out-of-town residences of the Soviet privileged classes, or even allotment shacks on the outskirts of post-Soviet cities. It is usually glossed in English dictionaries as “country house” or “cottage” and referred to as the Slavic equivalent of a vacation house or second home.