Journalists’ accounts were frequently peppered with observations that dacha locations contained a disproportionate number of foreigners. As usual, Germans were the butt of much unkind comment. Thus, for example, the son of a merchant family recalled rowdy toasts to the Kaiser at the neighboring dacha: “Notwithstanding the fact that the majority of them were German only in name and had been born and bred in Russia, the force of gravitation drew them to the land of their origin with such attraction as to make them avowed traitors to the country of their birth.”87 Germans attained more public prominence than was seemly at their annual Kullerberg celebrations on the eve of St. John’s Day (23 June).88 They were commonly alleged to be ubiquitous all through the summer in dacha settlements. As Vsevolod Krestovskii commented in the mid-1860s: “From May on dacha humanity can be sorted as follows: Pavlovsk is reserved for the beau monde; Novaia Derevnia equals Germans; Krestovskii equals Germans; Petrovskii—Germans again; Poliustrovo—civil servants and—alas!—Germans yet again!”89 An account of 1867 divided the Novaia Derevnia settlement into three parts: the trading area (with its inns, booths, and peddlers), the German district, and the “Jewish quarter” (a name that had taken hold, but in fact this district was not notably more Jewish than others). The staid atmosphere of the German district was in sharp contrast to the lively atmosphere of the Russian area. These differences in temperament had led to violent confrontations between the national groups.90
As the last example suggests, Jews were at least the equal of Germans as objects of disparagement. Of the lake district to the north of St. Petersburg it was observed that “these days Jews are aristocrats too . . . anyone who has money must be an aristocrat.”91 N. A. Leikin, speaking specifically of Pavlovsk, commented on the preponderance of “Jews, Jews, Jews, beginning with stockbrokers and contractors right up to concessionaires—polished Jews who try as hard as they can to cover their garlicky odor with eau de cologne.”92
Finnish peasants were also harshly treated on occasion, though attitudes toward them were on the whole less pointed and more affectionate. The worst that could be said about them was that they were surly and not overly concerned with hygiene; in particular, they took a long time to bury their dead and left manure and human excrement in open pits that fouled the atmosphere.93 The northern side of the Gulf of Finland had the reputation of being expensive (especially given the need to pay customs duties) and not unfailingly welcoming to Russians.94 But Finnish settlements had the compensating advantage of being quiet and safe (Terioki, for example, had none of the public disorder that characterized Russian locations).95
The greatest source of angst for late imperial dacha commentators, as for educated Russian society in general, was the native Russian peasant. As early as the summer of 1860, a Moscow columnist sent in a report from Kuntsevo, where he was staying at one of the dachas belonging to the Naryshkin family. The journalist assumed the position of one of the Naryshkins’ house guests, admiring the views, the hospitality, and the picturesque local peasants. But the latter refused to keep a respectful distance: “Peasant kids of both sexes run around the gardens trying to get tangled up under your feet and offering you bundles of lilacs or other flowers from the fields or the forest, depending on the season.”96Although this incident presented only a very mild inconvenience and would hardly have registered with journalists two or three decades later, it anticipates yet another argument mobilized in late imperial Russia against the dacha: the summer vacation industry was held responsible for diverting peasants from their fitting agricultural or artisanal occupations. Peasants who had not left to take menial jobs in the city occupied themselves with small-scale kitchen gardening, woodcutting, fishing, and petty trade—all with the dachnik consumer in view.97 Some villages had given up agriculture and handicrafts and moved over entirely to the dacha economy; such cases were inevitably treated with severe disapproval, as they were seen as contributing to the moral erosion of the countryside.98The incursion of a money economy into the villages was supposedly cutting peasants loose from feudalism and pushing them in the direction of an unwholesome modernity.
The prolific feuilletonist V. O. Mikhnevich was reluctant to use the neutral krest’ianin in reference to the dacha peasantry; instead he wrote of “dacha paysans” of “suburban peasants” (prigorodnye muzhichki), or of posadskie (suburban tradespeople), a term that, although archaic by the time he was writing (the 1880s), Mikhnevich felt captured the dislocated status of this group. For evidence to support his disapproving attitude Mikhnevich turned to the population of Pargolovo, a location beloved of journalists ever since the 1840s. Pargolovo peasants, he found, did not share the kindly nature of their patriarchal counterparts. They had ambitions above their station, but refused to work to realize them by honest labor. Instead, they looked to make large profits from supplying the local dacha population with goods and services (laundry, gardening, wood chopping) and to bend their backs as little as possible. Such peasants were commonly described disapprovingly as “prosperous.” It was very hard to define the occupation of these small-time traders; they had certainly lost all interest in working the land. Very often they leased out land for richer folk to build themselves dachas. On paper, these agreements were advantageous to the peasants, often stipulating that when the lease expired, the land with all buildings on it would revert to the original owners. In practice, however, peasants so desperately needed rent payments in ready cash that the leasing agreement continued indefinitely. The money thus obtained (in the region of 50 to 100 rubles per season even for the humblest of izbas) relieved them of the need for the land that traditionally guaranteed their subsistence.99
But it was not only intellectuals of a populist persuasion such as Mikhnevich who bemoaned the changing character of village life within the dachnik catchment area of the major cities. The freeing of peasants from their agricultural pursuits stoked fears of social tensions and even unrest. The village of Tosno, for example, had been greatly affected by the opening of the Nikolaevskaia railway line (between St. Petersburg and Moscow). Agriculture was in decline, and now peasants could not even derive supplementary income from ferrying dachniki about, as the railway provided a regular and efficient transit service. Local peasants mostly earned money by piecework in the city; but they were left little time for kitchen gardening and animal husbandry, and ended up buying a lot of their food at inflated prices from traders. The tourist orientation of the village was confirmed when the manager of Tosno station—to the dismay of local peasants—invited gypsy musicians to perform so as to attract visitors.100 According to many press reports of the 1880s and 1890s, peasant responses to social and economic dislocation often went a lot further than mere dismay. Here again Pargolovo was a popular example: