Summerfolk

The construction of the Finland railway line, completed in 1870, marked a new stage in the history of Pargolovo. Hitherto land in the prime dacha territory around the lakes had been rented out by the Shuvalov family on thirty-year leases.32 Now, however, it became potentially much more profitable and amenable to larger development. In 1877 it was decided to sell the land not as individual plots but in one chunk of over fifteen desiatinas. A company of seventy shareholders bought up this territory for 350,000 rubles. Other parts of the estate were given over to commercial development and rapidly subdivided for sale. The result was a series of densely populated summer settlements (including also Shuvalovo and Ozerki; Pargolovo itself was divided into three settlements—Pargolovo I, II, and III) made up of “several hundred dachas of varying size, from enormous, three-story buildings of the most fanciful rather than splendid architecture to hovels thrown together quickly from barge timber.”33 The pace of development in the northern suburbs of St. Petersburg is shown by the profitability of the Finland railway: the part of the line that ran through Russian territory (as far as Beloostrov) had receipts of 93,ooo rubles per Verst in 1897, while the more remote Finnish section was bringing in just 7,967 per verst.34 Petersburgers were attracted to buy plots here by the good transport links to the city, by the promise of unspoiled landscapes (Pargolovo was billed as “the Russian Switzerland”), and by perks such as street lighting and watchmen paid for by the company.35 The Petersburg press reported in 1880 that Samson’evskii Prospekt, leading north toward Pargolovo through the Vyborg Side, was crammed full of cartloads of furniture heading for the dacha. Land prices were going up accordingly, from 2.25 rubles per square sazhen to as much as 6 in Ozerki. The company formed to manage the Shuvalov dacha territories decided to raise the price of unsold land further, to pay a dividend of 10 percent to shareholders, and to provide electric lighting in Ozerki.36

The plots at Shuvalovo varied in area from around 400 square sazhens to well over 1,000. Several buildings were usually found on them: a main residence, a laundry, a stable, a cellar, a woodshed, and a kitchen. Usually there was room for more than one residential building.37 Servants might be accommodated in a small room in the main house or in a separate building. The social profile of applicants for planning permission was quite varied. For the most part, they were located in Russian society’s amorphous middle (civil servants, general majors, honored citizens), but there were peasants too.38