The Dacha

While in Russia, my friend George and I spent some time with a wonderful Russian couple, Stas and Elena.  They live in a small town, Pavlovski Posad one hour train ride from Moscow.  Stas works for the local bus company and Elena works in a daycare center. While there, we visited their dacha.

In the past when I heard the word dacha I, like many other people immediately thought of the super rich in Russia: the oligarchs, the mafia, and the politicians. Partially it is true, they have the big ones,  but most dachas are owned by average Russians. It is thought that about 25% of population has a dacha.

What is a dacha? Dacha is a villa, or a second home. Today it could be any size, but most dachas are weekend homes outside the city on a garden size plot and in general without water, sewer or electricity.  At the end of the week people take trains, buses, or cars and go to the country to work and grow vegetable, flowers and fruits in the garden.  Why do so many people have dachas? Because most Russians in the city live in apartment complexes that easily can have 20 -30 floors and house several thousands people. The apartments are small and the buildings are old. Going to dacha is having it all away from the city.

Elena, Stas and George
First view of Stas' and Elena's dacha

Stas in front of his dacha
 Stas spends much of his free time embellishing the building. He built it himself and carved all the designs. Elena does the gardening and on the weekends all the family - children and grandchildren gather here for a cookout. Stas is fortunate in that, that his dacha is walking distance from his home and it has water on the property, but not in the building.
Another view of Stas' dacha
 Thank you Elena and Stas for your warm hospitality.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My birth place, Novi Sad Serbia

Image
I was born in Novi Sad in 1941 in a lovely house on the shores of Danube River,  today Liman I. Most of my early memories are associated with the river and the Strand (the Novi Sad beach). Today, the university campus is on the location where our neighborhood used to be. The campus was created in the late 1950's and early 1960's, and to create it, our house along with all of our neighbors homes were taken away. Some families, including ours, were never compensated for the the loss. Here are a few pictures of me on the Danube that my father took in the summer of 1943. I have no pictures of the house in Novi Sad At the time of my birth my father, Karoly Wissinger, (Karlo Visinger, in Serbian) was working on the interior designs of the Banovina building. The architect of the building was Dragisa Brasovan. Today the building serves as the government offices for Vojvodina Region. My father and samples of his work inside Banovina.   We left the...
Read more

Mid Carolina Run Shop Hop 2012

Image
As I was visiting my family in North Carolina I came across an ad for this shop hop. Although, my Daughter-in-Law is not a quilter, I mentioned this shop hop to her and we got really enthused about the adventure. What is a "shop-hop"?  It is visiting participating quilt shops and collecting a free fabric piece or pattern samples from each shop. Once all the patterns are collected a quilt can be made. In these shops in addition to the patterns they gave away regional recipes as well. There were only seven shops in this group, but it took us a whole day to visit each and every one of them. We had a wonderful time together and it was a beautiful day to travel.   Here are the  quilts made from the blocks given away by the stores. Each store choose their own fabrics and added their creativity while assembling the quilts.
Read more

Some observations of nature

Image
During my travelings, I came across some interesting events that I felt the need to share. The white slug and the mating earthworms were a first for me. Slugs Slugs are standard pests in the gardens of Pacific Northwest, but when I was in Alaska I took pictures of these two. One was all black and the other one was all white. Both were really large, about 8 - 9 inches long. The slugs I have seen in our area are mostly brownish gray with spots and were definitely shorter. This slug was really, really black White slug - or is it albino? Did you ever see a white slug? Mating earthworms While visiting my home in Futog, Serbia I came across this pair of mating earthworms. I never even knew they mate! I am glad I did not step on them. Earthworms are hermaphrodites, meaning they each have the makings of both sexes: male sperms and female eggs. They fertilize each others eggs, but not during the mating. After they are done mating, they separate and each lays their eggs in a co...
Read more