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Video: Carts with furniture and picnics with a gramophone: Why did they go to the dacha in Tsarist Russia
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
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.
The origin of summer cottages
According to the most widespread version, the word "dacha" has come into use among Russians since the time when Peter I began to distribute plots near St. Petersburg to his associates for the construction of temporary houses. This was due to the fact that the noble people who lived in Moscow, now, with the emergence of the new capital, had to be in St. Petersburg, and it was unrealistic to constantly travel back and forth. In other words, "dacha" - from the word "distribute".
In November 1844, Nicholas I issued a decree addressed to the Chief of the Main Naval Staff "On the distribution of country land in the city of Kronstadt for the construction of houses or summer cottages and the cultivation of gardens." It clearly laid down the rules for the ownership of such lands and their maintenance, the implementation of which was to be monitored by a special Committee.
The document said that naval officers, at their request, are allocated land, each of which is divided into 15 sections of strictly defined sizes. The owner of such a summer cottage is obliged to enclose his plot with a "shaped palisade" during the first three years, erect a building for housing on it, facing the road, and be sure to equip the garden. Initially, the owner of the plot receives a document of temporary ownership, and if, after three years, the dacha is equipped with it, the plot will be given for perpetual use. In the same case, if in three years he does not bring the site into proper form, the land, according to the decree of the king, will be transferred to another owner. But again, provided that the new summer resident will maintain the site in proper form.
Away from city dust
In the 19th century, as in large cities (first of all, in Moscow and St. trees, more and more citizens began to think about temporary, but regular trips to their country cottages.
Enterprising merchants began to buy up large plots of land near Moscow and St. Petersburg, divide them into smaller ones and sell or rent them out at high interest rates to citizens of various classes - poor nobles, merchants, officials, artists. Noble landowners (for example, those in need of money) now considered it not shameful to split their country estates into many plots and also give them to summer cottages. The fact is that after 1861, landowners were officially allowed to lease their land, not related to peasant allotments, and representatives of other estates were also allowed to do so.
This kind of business has become very profitable. Many townspeople could not buy a country house (too expensive), but they could afford to pay for rented housing - rent was also not cheap, but still it was more accessible to officials, merchants and even very poor Muscovites (for example, the same students), ready for the sake of fresh air to rent one or two rooms in a place farther from Moscow.
By the way, some richer families who rented country houses for the summer also practiced subletting, renting out rooms.
In the vicinity of Moscow, for example, the villages of Perlovka, Novogireevo, Lianozovo, Kuntsevo, dachas in Butovo, Tsaritsyn, on the Klyazma, and near St. Petersburg - dachas on the Ligovka River, in Tsarskoe Selo, Gatchina appeared.
Trip to the cottage
The townspeople began to select a house for summer vacations already in March-April, going round the dacha villages and trying to find a place more convenient and cheaper and the first to “stake out” it. More experienced and wealthy families came to the same dacha every year, which was convenient for both them and the landlord.
Moving to the dacha was a grandiose and very troublesome event for the family. For such an event, draft cabs were hired. A whole caravan of carts carried from the city to the dacha the master's furniture, dishes, bundles of clothes and other household items, as well as pets and even flowers in pots. In addition to the owners with children, servants, tutors, cooks were sitting in the carts …
Well, in the fall, with the onset of cold weather, exactly the same lines of carts stretched from the dacha villages to the cities, only to everything else were added jars of jam and other homemade preparations that summer residents brought to the city.
The advent of railways made life in the country even more convenient, because a business person could go to the city at any time to solve some important issues and return to his family the next day. In a cab, this journey took much longer. In the summer season, additional - suburban - trains were launched, since the number of passengers during this period increased significantly. It is interesting that at the beginning of the last century, as now, during especially "hot" summer hours, trains were almost taken by storm, the carriages were packed to capacity. Returning from the city to the dacha to his families, each man considered it his duty to bring gifts, so that the passengers were loaded like beasts of burden - as now, more than a hundred years later.
Like modern taxi drivers, in those days, cabbies in gig carriages were on duty at railway stations, ready to give a lift to visitors to their sites.
Leisure without gadgets
At the dacha, the townspeople tried to stay as long as possible, at least until mid-October, because the rent for dachas, as a rule, was charged not monthly, but for the entire season. Well, there were more than enough interesting activities outside the city! One could swim, and when the cold came, go boating and fishing, play cards, croquet or tennis, drink tea on the terrace, read and visit each other. And although every self-respecting summer resident considered it his duty to write in a letter to a friend what a longing and boredom outside the city, in fact, no one was going to return to the city.
Summer residents actively met new people, started novels and enjoyed discussing all the events that took place in the village. By the way, artists often performed in the dacha villages. For example, Chaliapin, at the dawn of his vocal career, came with concerts to vacationers.
A special event was the dacha picnic, which was equipped with all the conveniences thanks to the domestic help - hot food, gramophone, samovar.
By the way, it was not very accepted among vacationers to go into a garden or go to the forest for mushroom berries, but no one considered making jam shameful - fortunately, peddlers went around the country houses every day and sold large quantities of berries to the owners.
In general, summer cottage rest in those days was not hard labor in the beds, but one big entertainment several months long.
More retro photographs of pre-revolutionary dacha life can be viewed here.
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