What did Soviet celebrities do at dachas near Moscow

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Today, dacha life is associated with growing crops and fun picnics with barbecue. And just a few decades ago, dacha life in some well-known villages near Moscow developed in a completely different way. It was a kind of branch of creative workshops, where unique atmospheric concerts and performances were held, where new ideas were born and new works were created.

Peredelkino

Back in the first half of the 1930s, Soviet writers began to receive dachas in Peredelkino. Legend has it that it was Maxim Gorky, answering Stalin's question about the life of writers abroad, talking about houses outside the city. Then the head of the country made a decision to allocate state dachas to writers. Simultaneously with the appearance of writers' dachas, the House of Creativity was also built, in which not only writers, but also other cultural and artistic figures had the opportunity to rest.

Subsequently, Peredelkino became the focus of the literary elite; Chukovsky and Pasternak, Yevtushenko and Akhmadullina, Babel and Ehrenburg, Ilf and Petrov, Shaginyan and Okudzhava, Voznesensky and Paustovsky lived here at different times.

Korney Chukovsky loved Peredelkino for the possibility of solitude. But at the same time, in moments of relaxation, he liked to receive guests, arranged real literary evenings. And for the children of writers at the beginning and at the end of the summer, the writer, dressed in an Indian costume, arranged festive bonfires, the entrance fee for which he took with cones or nettle leaves.

At Boris Pasternak's dacha, evenings of poetry reading were often held, where his own and other people's works sounded, celebrities parodied, and enjoyed the opportunity to communicate. Many people actually came to the Writers' House to write. At the same time, no one interfered with others, everyone worked actively, getting together only in the dining room, and sometimes in the evenings to relax a little and relax.

Nikolina Gora

The first summer cottages here were built by the RANIS dacha-building cooperative for scientists and artists. The picturesque place very quickly became popular in the creative environment, and among the most famous residents are Vikenty Veresaev and Sergei Prokofiev, Svyatoslav Richter and Sergei Mikhalkov, Mikhail Botvinnik and Pyotr Kapitsa, Vasily Kachalov, Alexei Novikov-Priboy and many more outstanding scientists, musicians, writers. For the summer, Lilya Brik and Leonid Utyosov often rented houses, Olga Knipper-Chekhova lived during the season.

The famous Moscow Art Theater actor Vasily Kachalov constantly gathered theatrical figures who arranged noisy creative evenings, put on performances, and performed skits. And in the neighborhood, Vikenty Veresaev and Mikhail Bulgakov, who came to a friend's dacha, could sit in silence for a long time. In 1946, Sergei Prokofiev settled on Nikolina Gora, who spent the last eight years of his life here, created the Seventh Symphony and acquired his own chicken coop, where he enthusiastically raised plates and watched the eggs ripen in the incubator.

Malakhovka

The history of Malakhovka dates back to the XIV century, but the first dachas began to appear here in the mid-1880s. Malakhovka very quickly became one of the favorite vacation spots of outstanding personalities. In 1915, Faina Ranevskaya made her debut at the Summer Theater, who much later would become one of the most famous residents of this village, here she touched art and first appeared on the stage Maria Vladimirovna Mironova, the mother of Andrei Mironov. This theater was the legend of Malakhovka, Muscovites came here to see the performances of the best theaters in the capital. Fyodor Chaliapin's own autograph was on the frame of the Summer Theater, and Alexander Vertinsky sang on its stage. Unfortunately, in 1999 the theater burned down.

There are many famous people among the inhabitants of this dacha village, including Marc Chagall, who taught art at the labor school-colony for street children "III International". Maxim Gorky and Ivan Bunin came to Malakhovka for literary meetings of the Sredy group, organized by Nikolai Teleshov.

Zhukovka

This village is still called academic, although lately fewer cultural and scientific workers have been living here. Nevertheless, Zhukovka is considered a legendary village. Academician Sakharov and Vishnevskaya with Rostropovich, Ekaterina Furtseva and Spanish communist Dolores Ibarruri, genius director Yuri Lyubimov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Dmitry Shostakovich, Alexander Galich and Klavdia Shulzhenko lived here or rented their dachas. However, this list is far from complete.

Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya were often visited by guests, they arranged musical meetings here and were ready to provide shelter to those who needed it. Later, Alexander Solzhenitsyn settled in their house, who created his "Gulag Archipelago" in Zhukovka.

Valentinovka

This summer cottage settlement was chosen for recreation by the best representatives of the creative intelligentsia even before the revolution. Anton Chekhov, Vera Pashennaya and Konstantin Stanislavsky loved to relax here, after which dachas were built for the actors of the Moscow Art Theater and the Maly Theater.

Here lived Alexander Vertinsky and Viktor Ardov, Yuri Nikulin and Oleg Popov, Mikhail Zharov, and today the dachas of Yuri Solomin and Alexander Kalyagin are located in Valentinovka. At the Vertinskys 'dacha, some kind of warm and at the same time extremely cheerful celebrations were constantly organized at the Vertinskys' dacha, all this was accompanied by surprises and jokes.

For a modern inhabitant of a metropolis, the end of September is no longer a summer cottage season, but some 150 years ago, in the fall, life was still in full swing in suburban villages. Well, the dacha rest itself was unusually rich and even more exciting than it is now. And this is despite the lack of gadgets, TVs and other benefits of civilization. The pre-revolutionary vacationers, although they complained of "dacha boredom", tried to return to dusty cities as late as possible.