Mothers & Daughters: The Dacha

THE DACHA

Spring 1840.

When real spring arrived, Baba Lena removed the double glazing from the windows. She placed flowers on the balconies and on slides in front of the windows of the living room and sofa room. The warm sun shined cheerfully in the sky, The wide Volga overflowed, flooding all the islets and riverbanks with blue waters. The sound of murmuring water mingled with the rumble of wheels and merry chatter from the streets. The alleys were not yet covered with greenery, and still quite visible, but the din of birds on the boulevard of the cathedral square were singing, and the pigeons on the roof cooed incessantly. After two weeks, everything turned green with bright, verdant foliage, and the grownups took the girls for daily walks. They gathered after classes near the cathedral on the boulevard and played various games with their friends. They ran about wildly, with chaotic youth, and their laughter and screaming could be heard all along the alleys. They also went with Baba Lena to the family dacha, one of the several rural estates that began to appear in the Russian Empire during the 17th century. They were given by the Tsar to faithful subjects, and the name itself stemmed from an archaic Russian verb –dat, meaning “to give.” When the Industrial Revolution finally reached Russia, and urban centers experienced rapid population growth, the more affluent residents found respite from the polluted cities by temporarily relocating to these provincial homes.

Their dacha, where Baba Lena ordered amendments to summer life, was just one verst from the city. It was built by their friends, the Panchulpdzev family, several generations of whom had been governors at Saratov. The current owner was Alexander Alekseevich, the Governor of Penza, where the Panchulpdzev were noblemen and the richest proprietors. The dacha was an old one, made of stone, and consisted of a common room with all the lordly claims, with flowers and cherubim painted on the ceilings. It was, however, an already somewhat neglected house. Attached to the residence there was a large, abandoned garden, a park really, full of ruined kiosks, and pagodas. There were large stone two-story outbuildings on both sides of the dacha, formerly decorated with all kinds of curtains, now wild, with weak, decaying signs of the former prosperity.

The dacha had two balconies, supported by thick columns. The steps from one balcony descended into a front garden filled with lilac. The steps of the other balcony, the larger one, went out to three dense linden alleys. These alleys were cut by a gap that grew larger from the rains and turned further, to the left, into a deep ravine that led to the Volga. A little further out, there was a meadow and a beautiful shady grove (a very pleasant place for a walk) which bordered the city cemetery, known as the “Red Cemetery.”[1] A year earlier, in August 1839, there was a cholera epidemic in Saratov. Through the diligence of Abbess Evagfia of the Holy Cross Convent, a plot of land between the two ravines and the Volga was allocated for burial. A large wooden red cross, from which the cemetery got its name, was immediately erected.[2]

In the grove the girls collected violets, rejoicing that every day it was blooming more and more. Here they played their favorite game, “Bandit and Captive Maiden.” Lelya always wanted to be one of the bandits, however. “You must be Captive Maiden sometimes,” the others told her. Bandits never had such hard work to capture a maiden. Lelya fought, bit, and kicked until they were glad to cast her as “Bandit” thereafter.[3] Running up hillward, the grove, ended in a few trees, but as one went down to the Volga, the density of trees intensified into a real forest whose hardly visible paths were covered, knee-deep, with moss and thickets. (It was allegedly the hiding place for all the runaway criminals and deserters.)[4]

To the right of the linden alleys began a melon patch, with watermelons, cucumbers, and kalminki. To the left, on both sides of the ravine, there was a lawn overgrown with colorful rosehips and flowers, where the girls would catch butterflies. In front of the ravine, the grove continued, leading to the so-called “large dacha,” which, this summer stood empty. This old and vast building was full of subterranean galleries, long-abandoned passages, turrets, and weird nooks and crannies. It looked more like a medieval ruined castle than a building of the nineteenth century. Paev, the man who took care of the estate for the proprietors, was of a type who regarded the serfs as something far lower and less precious than his hounds—had been known for his cruelty and tyranny, and his name was synonymous with “curse.” Legends told of his ferocious and despotic temper, of unfortunate serfs beaten to death by him, and imprisoned for months in dark subterranean dungeons.[5]

Beyond the ravine, at the end of the straight alley leading from this large dacha, there was a pond, beyond which the grove turned into a forest. Between both dachas, there was a wonderful dirt barn—a large place, closed by a high wall from the northern winds, with a plank roof that covered it from snow and frost in the winter. This roof was removed in the summer and replaced with a net to shield it from voracious sparrows. This barn contained tall, green fruit trees that were not used to the cold. They produced glorious Spanish cherries that were so deeply red, they were nearly black.

If one walked a straight along the only right linden alley, one would be led to several paths that diverged like a star in different directions of the grove, and right in the middle of this crossroads stood a wooden gazebo—a large round pavilion, with a round dome on pillars—the place of many of the girls’ entertainments.

From early on Vera was a whimsical dreamer, and often invented whole fictions for herself about everything that caught her eye. She really loved climbing into the grove alone and was not afraid of anything in it. She would sit a tired Nanny Nastya on the steps of the gazebo. “I’ll just pick a bouquet and be right back,” Vera would tell her, and she would proceed to climb into the thicket and forget about the flowers.

She would stand with her hands down, motionless among the tall white birches, under which, breaking through the brown mound of last year’s foliage, the fragrant lilies of the valley were strung on thin stems like white pearls. Vera stood there, admiring and listening. “How quiet!” she thought. It seemed as if the bugs, bees, dragonflies, and all sorts of insects, buzzing so happily in the sunlit meadows, were afraid of the forest darkness, and dared not fly here. The birds in the forest did not sing there as they did in the garden and alleys, only occasionally, and timidly, chirping and whistling alone somewhere on the tops of the trees. The ants and long-legged spiders ran quickly at her feet on the gray ground, flashing among the moving pattern of light spots. “Why are they running? What are they looking for?” She lifted her and admired how beautifully the curly tops of the trees stood out against the bright sky! A young leaf would flutter high in the air. “Poor thing!” Vera thought. “He’s so small and weak! The wind is shaking him so much. Now he’ll break away and spin, fly to the ground.” She even extended her hand, preparing to catch him on the fly. But the leaf did not fall. She often imagined that she was not alone, thinking her thoughts, but that everything that surrounded her—the birches, chirping birds, and butterflies—everything knew her thoughts, understood her, and silently agreed with her. It seemed to her as though she would inevitably come across something that was talked about in fairytales. She never knew fear in this forest (except in one instance,) yet she sincerely believed that if she only walked a little farther, she would certainly come across Baba Yaga (with her house on chicken legs,) or the devil, or robbers, or even the Serpent Gorynych himself! All those yarns interested her terribly, but they did not frighten her at all.

Very listened carefully “Is someone coming? Is it flying above? Is that someone’s voice or a horse’s tramp? Will there be a valiant whistle or the cry of the princess, led by the evil girl to be devoured by the wolves?” She peered vigilantly, confident that she could see something mysterious, and more often than not, her heart skipped a beat with anticipation. Needless to say, she was so brave precisely because nothing ever happened to her in the grove. If something unusual had actually presented itself to her, she probably would have died of fear.[6]

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SOURCES:

[1] Fadeyev, Andrei Mikhailovich. Vospominaniia: 1790-1867. Vysochaishe Utverzhd. Yuzhno-Russkago. Odessa, Ukraine. [Russian Empire.] (1897): Part I: 154.

[2] Semiletov, Petr. Gullies Of Saratov. Samizdat. Russia. (2017): 106.

[3] Russell, Edmund. “As I Knew Her.” The Herald Of The Star. Vol. V, No. 5. (May 11, 1916): 197-205; Russell, Edmund. “Isis Unveiled: Personal Recollections Of Madame Blavatsky.” The Occult Review. Vol. XXVIII, No. 5 (November 1918): 261-269.

[4] Sinnett, Alfred Percy. Incidents In The Life of Madame Blavatsky. G. Redway. London, England. (1886): 33.

[5] Ibid, 30-31.

[6] Zhelihovskaya, Vera Petrovna. How I Was Little. A. F. Devrien. St. Petersburg, Russia. (1898): 89-95.