Dacha

The article attempts to describe the social order of the post-soviet dacha space (summer country house):
an organized system of relations determining the interactions of its members. The main research subject is dacha
practices. The article is based on a field research applied in the case study strategy.
The post-soviet dacha is represented as a social institution, an element of urban residents’ sustainable social
development. It encourages the creation of stable social relationships, namely of family and neighbors. Being an
urban family’s local territory, it allows to realize a family project (gender roles and age-specific needs).
The article discloses the ambivalent nature of dacha work which generates a multiple-meaning continuum
from a type of labor as a ‘burden’ to a unique leisure activity. It is demonstrated how the dacha space gives its
inhabitants freedom from the urbanized pace of life, while on the other hand suggesting its own social order.

This paper endeavours to understand how in the Soviet and Post-Soviet world, dachas and kitchen gardens are places where memories can be passed down. The singular narrative of Tatar patriarch Pavel Ivanovitch exemplifies how this garden, as the memory
of a nourishing land, enabled his family to survive collectivisation and the Great Patriot War. Although belittled by Bolshevik authorities, this family was able to keep up to its social status. By contrast, dacha transmission and its accompanying memory are not
easy since some members of the kindred refuse it, thus threatening the group cohesion. It even happens that inheritance is totally turned down, or the dacˇnik, rejecting a maimed and shameful self-image – in relation to a collapsing world – might forego his passion’s
transmission of the dacha.

Two models of keeping a vegetable garden, a widespreadactivity among city-dwellers in the post-Soviet world,can be discerned. Characterized by a low (or negative)return on investment, the “counterhandicap” model is un-derlaid by a rationale of improving the quality of the foodconsumed, whereas the “entrepreneurial” model makesit possible to earn a real income. Fieldwork and statisticsserve to place gardening in the perspective of householdeconomics and to qualify its contribution to “survival”.

Official planning documents and strategies often look at cities from above neglecting people’s experiences and practices. Meanwhile cities as meaningful places are constructed though citizens’ practices, memories and ties with their surroundings. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to discover people’s bonds with their urban allotment gardens – dachas – in the Russian city of Kaliningrad and to explore the significance of these bonds for city development. The phenomenon of the dacha has a long history in Russia. Similar to urban allotment gardens in other countries, dachas are an essential part of the city landscape in many post-socialist countries but differ by their large scale. Recent decades have brought diversity into the urban dacha areas of Russia and express a shift away from their primary function of recreational horticulture towards a greater variety in usage, including housing. Due to multiple legal frameworks these areas have become special enclaves with haphazard development, inadequate levels of infrastructure and low quality of self-build houses. Urban dachas can be examined as an example of both post-socialist suburbanization and informal settlement. In this thesis the concept of place attachment, derived from the works of human geographers and environmental psychologists, is used as both the theoretical and methodological lens to look at people-place relations in urban dacha areas. The empirical evidence for this study was gathered through interviews and observations in Kaliningrad where urban dachas comprise 11% of the city’s territory. To capture the different aspects of place attachment in these areas the data was categorised according to common themes. The findings of this study show the complexity of the bonds between people and their urban allotment gardens. Despite all the hardships, these places provide their residents an opportunity for independence and self-realization. The respondents demonstrated an energy and aspiration to achieve increased well-being for themselves and their families, however the lack of resources and institutions hinders the development of place attachment in urban dacha areas. The identified features of people’s bonds with their dachas should not only be preconditions for urban planning but also an integral part of the planning and development process. This study also tests the application of the concept of place attachment for urban studies.

В статье предпринята попытка показать социальный порядок постсоветского дачного пространства — организованную систему отношений, определяющую взаимодействие его участников. Главный предмет исследования — дачные практики. Основой для статьи послужило полевое исследование, реализованное в стратегии case-study. Постсоветская дача представлена как социальный институт, элемент устойчивого социального развития горожан. Она провоцирует создание устойчивых социальных отношений — семьи и соседства. Будучи локальной территорией городской семьи, она создает возможность реализации семейного проекта (гендерные роли и возрастные потребности). Показана амбивалентная природа дачного труда, образующая многосмысловой континуум от труда «в тягость» до уникальной формы досуга. В статье продемонстрировано как дачное пространство с одной стороны, дает ее обитателям свободу от урбанизированного ритма жизни, с другой стороны, предлагает свой социальный порядок. Ключевые слова: домашний труд, гендер, дача, ...

The practice of dacha subdivision, and garden plot allotment in particular, spread widely during Soviet times, not only within the Russian Federation, but also to other Soviet Republics and even other socialist countries. While in the environs of the many-socialist cities, second homes are actively included into the real estate market and housing supply, Moscow’s suburbs demonstrate their loyalty to the established tradition of seasonal migration between the city and the countryside. This study seeks to address the question how do the shifting from socialist to market economy impact the dacha life-style of the Muscovites and to look into dynamics of the changes in the relations between the city and hinterland since the collapse of the socialist state from dachas’ point of view.

Russian second home purchases in Finland have grown rapidly since 2000, and have been the source of a contested social debate. This study represents the first investigation of Russian second home ownership in Finland. The aim is to investigate how such trans-border second home mobility is produced (its elements and trajectories), challenged, and what are its socio-economic and spatial outcomes at the local and regional levels. The phenomenon is approached theoretically applying the concepts of constellations of mobility and mobility regime. While these theoretical approaches have been used to address leisure mobilities that originate in the West, Russian second home ownership in Finland represents a different mobility pattern, from East to West. The findings emphasise the increasing role of the border in the production and practice, as well as in the outcomes of such mobility. This study shows that the perceived outcome of Russian ownership presented through the social debate has been detached from the actual phenomenon. The empirical part of the dissertation – four research papers – uncovers the driving factors in Russian second home mobility, its challenges, and its socio-economic and spatial outcome, which collectively help address the social debate and inform policy makers. Simultaneously, the empirical study re-interprets Western mobility approaches in relation to Russian trans-border mobility and reveals peculiarities of the East-to-West mobility trajectory.

The article is devoted to the issue of studying domestic non-professional "borderline" architecture of the last decades. This stratum of architectural creativity has not been investigated in national or international theory of architecture. Private construction in out-of-town gardening cooperatives and ‘cottage’ and small settlements has been developing rapidly in the Russian Federation during this period and has generated an improbable variety of architectural forms. The author outlines some aspects of the further research programme: terminological, semiotic, social, intellectual and structural.