What Was a Dacha?
If the social and geographical factors underlying the dacha boom seem clear enough, much less obvious is how we should begin to analyze the phenomenon; whether, indeed, it is possible to provide an elegant categorization of all the forms of dwelling that were called “dacha.” The only existing book-length work on the subject advances a sensible typology of summerfolk settlement in this period.7 First comes the “dacha suburb” (dachnyi prigorod), consisting of dachas that were built as part of an overall framework of urban planning (such as St. Petersburg’s Neva islands or towns within its orbit, such as Gatchina, Luga, and Sestroretsk) or that sprang up on a major estate or palace settlement within easy reach of the city (Peterhof, Oranienbaum, Pavlovsk, Tsarskoe Selo). This is the oldest form of dacha settlement: depending on how exactly the dacha is defined, it can be said to date from the 1710s or 1720s, but it had certainly made its appearance by the middle of the reign of Catherine II. Second, the “dacha village” (dachnaia derevnia) includes, quite simply, those villages where peasants and other property holders rented out their houses to city dwellers. Peasants in the St. Petersburg region were earning nonagri-cultural income of this kind from the beginning of the nineteenth century, if not before. The third category is the “dacha location” (dachnaia mestnost’). This is a form of settlement that has a strong dacha orientation (where many or even most houses were used as dachas) but that was not created with this function in view. Dacha locations were typically former villages (Beloostrov, Krasnoe Selo, Pargolovo, Toksovo) or estates (Dudergof, Kushelevka, Poliustrovo, Shuvalovo) or a combination of the two (Kuokkala, Raivola, Terioki). Finally, we have the “dacha settlement” (dachnyi poselok)designed specifically for recreational dacha use (Alesksandrovka, Vladimirovka, Vyritsa, Ol’gino, Siverskaia, Udel’naia, and many others): this phenomenon grew in significance toward the end of the nineteenth century, and it came into its own at the start of the twentieth.
Even a set of definitions as broad as this does not include everything that went under the name of “dacha” in the last third of the nineteenth century. It is fitted specifically to the dacha patterns of St. Petersburg guberniia and so does not even claim to reflect the trend for locations much farther from the city. People with the freedom and the inclination to absent themselves for the whole of the summer might rent a house in the country several hours away in remote corners of neighboring regions. In the early 1870s dachas might be located fifty versts or more from the nearest railway station. This new model of the dacha as a full-fledged summer retreat rather than as a temporary vacation cottage within easy reach of Moscow or St. Petersburg was exemplified by the habits of Fedor Dostoevsky. Recently returned from a lengthy period abroad, the writer spent the summer of 1872 in Staraia Russa, a medium-sized provincial town in Novgorod guberniia. In a letter to his sister he explained all the advantages of his decision: “It’s cheap, it’s quick and easy to move here, and finally, the house comes with furniture, even with crockery, the station has newspapers and journals, and so on.” The Dostoevskys rented this house from a local priest; the following summer they chose a dacha owned by a retired lieutenant colonel that subsequently—in 1876—they bought outright. As Dostoevskys wife reported, it was “not a town house, but rather took the form of a country estate, with a large shady garden, a vegetable garden, outbuildings, and cellar.”8
After Dostoevsky’s time, the spread of locations continued to expand and prices to come down. In the 1880s, for example, it was nothing out of the ordinary for Petersburg dachniki to venture far into Finnish territory, renting often rather modest houses in a long string of settlements that extended all the way to Vyborg. Muscovites were even more adventurous in their summer habits: for them the dacha concept had become broad enough to include houses near provincial towns such as Tver’ and Rybinsk, or in distant regions such as Ukraine. By the 1900s, moreover, newspapers carried a healthy sprinkling 61 of advertisements for “dachas” in the Crimea, a location that was no longer by any means the preserve of pleasure-seeking high society.9
As well as expanding enormously, the dacha market became much more differentiated in the last third of the nineteenth century. Rented summer accommodations were sought by everyone from craftsmen to aristocrats; accordingly, dachas varied enormously in size, level of amenities, and cost. The humblest dachniki would have an annual income of just a few hundred rubles; solid “middle-class” salaries in the major cities began at around 1,000 rubles, while certain categories of professionals (university professors, the upper ranks of the civil service) might easily bring in more than 2,000 rubles, as well as enjoying additional perks such as free or subsidized apartments. Dacha prices for the season reflected this spread of incomes. They could be as low as 40 rubles for a peasant izba; they were typically in the range of 150 to 200 rubles for something a middling civil servant might consider respectable; the grander summer residences might cost 1,000 rubles or more.10 By the 1880s, advertisements were found for modest dachas of as little as two rooms, some of them intended “for a solitary person”; at the top end of the market were spacious villas of twenty rooms or more; while a typical medium-sized family dacha might consist of six or eight rooms with modest servants’ quarters and a couple of outbuildings. This many-layered stratification was reflected in new, more elaborate terminology adopted in many newspaper advertisements of the time. Rather than referring simply to a “dacha,” they employed a range of compound nouns. Near the bottom of the range was a “dacha apartment” (kvartira-dacha), which in most cases comprised a few rooms rented in someone’s house. A more private and spacious option was a “dacha house” (dom-dacha) or a “detached dacha” (dacha-osobniak). Tenants who wanted accommodations for use outside the summer months could rent a “winter dacha” (zimniaia dacha). Customers with more refined tastes might require a “lordly dacha” (barskaia dacha) while those with manorial aspirations could look for a “dacha estate” (dachnoe imenie or, less grandly, usad’ba-dacha).