page_title: Dacha
section_title: Soviet Union
hierarchical_section_title: Dacha / History / Soviet Union
caption_attribution_description: English: “Country house battening”. Battening a country house in a dacha co-operative in the environs of Moscow. Русский: «Отделка дома». Дачный кооператив "Север". Хозяева обшивают дом вагонкой. Россия , Московская область
context_page_description: A dacha is a seasonal or year-round second home, often located in the exurbs of Russian-speaking and other post-Soviet countries. A cottage or shack serving as a family's main or only home, or an outbuilding, is not considered a dacha, although some dachas recently have been converted to year-round residences and vice versa.
  The word "dacha", coming from "davat" or "give", originally referred to land allotted by the tsar to his nobles; and indeed the dacha in Soviet times is similar to the allotment in some Western countries – a piece of land allotted, normally free, to citizens by the local government for gardening or growing vegetables for personal consumption. With time the name for the land was applied to the building on it. In some cases, owners occupy their dachas for part of the year and rent them to urban residents as summer retreats. People living in dachas are colloquially called dachniki; the term usually refers not only to dacha dwellers but to a distinctive lifestyle. The Russian term is often said to have no exact counterpart in English.
context_section_description: Following the Russian Revolution, most dachas were nationalised. Some were converted into vacation homes for factory workers, while others, usually of better quality, were distributed among the prominent functionaries of the Communist Party and the newly emerged cultural and scientific elite. All but a few dachas remained the property of the state and the right to use them was usually revoked when a dacha occupant was dismissed or fell out of favour with the rulers of the state. Building new dachas required permission from senior officials and was rarely granted during the early years of the Soviet Union. The seniormost Soviet leaders all had their own dachas, and Joseph Stalin's favourite was in Gagra, Abkhazia. New dachas started to be built in larger numbers during the 1930s, and dacha colonies for artists, or soldiers, or various classes of party functionaries, started to form.
  There were legal size restrictions for dacha houses in the Soviet era. They had to have not more than 60 m² (646 sq ft) of living area and be only one story tall. For that reason, they usually had a mansard roof, which was considered by authorities as just a large garret or attic, not a second story. Often ill-equipped and without indoor plumbing, dachas were nevertheless a solution for millions of working-class families, to have their own form of summer retreat. Having a piece of land also offered an opportunity for city dwellers to indulge themselves in growing their own fruits and vegetables. In the years before and after World War II, cultivation of garden crops on dacha plots was substantial, because of the failure of the centrally planned Soviet agricultural programme to supply enough fresh produce. Many dacha owners grew crops for market. Since then, growing garden crops has been of lesser importance, but continues to be widespread. Many Russian dacha owners still see gardening as a key value of dachnik culture. Keeping historical food shortages in mind, they take great pride in growing their own food rather than buying it at a store.
  The period after World War II saw moderate growth in dacha development. Since there was no actual law banning the construction of dachas, people began occupying unused plots of land near cities and towns, growing gardens and building sheds, huts, and more prominent dwellings that served as dachas. As time passed, the number of squatters grew and the government had no choice but to officially recognise their right to amateur farming. The 1955 legislation introduced a new type of legal person into the Soviet juridical system, a gardeners' partnership (садоводческое товарищество, sadovodcheskoye tovarishchestvo), similar to community gardens in other countries. The gardeners' partnership received the right to permanent use of land exclusively for agricultural purposes and permission to connect to public electrical and water supply networks. In 1958, yet another form of organisation was introduced, a cooperative for dacha construction (дачно-строительный кооператив, dachno-stroytelniy kooperativ), which recognised the right of an individual to build a small house on the land leased from the government.
  The 1980s saw the peak of the dacha boom, with nearly all affluent families—over a third of families in urban areas—having a dacha of their own. Dacha houses built since the late 1980s are significantly larger than older ones because legal size restrictions were liberalized, and new dacha areas became fields of relatively big houses on tiny land plots. Tracts between lines of dacha land plots are usually unimproved or improved with crushed stone, and narrow (often about 6 m (20 ft) between fences) enough that two cars can hardly pass each other by.
  Dachas also started to be found in other Eastern Bloc countries, especially in East Germany, where the concept was unknown before 1945 (but remains quite current, even after German reunification), and in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
caption: Battening a country house in a dacha co-operative in the environs of Moscow, 1993
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