The Great Dacha Adventure

Last week, on a Wednesday Sasha invited me to go to his parent's Dacha.  Just to recap, dacha is like a summer house, but for the over active imagination of the English and Americans it's not like a real house; though they can be, but for the most part they are small structures with very little frills and no working bathrooms.  The problem with the dacha is that you never know what you're going to get.  I've been in some dachas that are like small mansions and others that resemble something from hillbilly's wet dream.  When Sasha made the invitation, it went something like this:

Him: Let’s go to dacha this weekend.  But I have to tell you, it’s not so great.  It’s not VIP or anything.

Me: Gee, that does sound like fun.

Him: Nah, it’s not so bad.

In very Russian style he managed to make an outing outside of the city sound like going to jail, and then make it sound like I made it sound bad.  This is truly a Russian trait.   One must always remember to take things with a grain of salt.  I was curious what this bad but not so bad place looked like, so I agreed.  On the day we were supposed to leave, which was Saturday afternoon, I had to work.  Being me, I planned ahead and packed what I needed and took the backpack with me so that I could meet him at the train station.  After work, and several text messages we agreed to meet on the street and try to catch the 2:57 train.  At 1:40 I got a message telling me that he was just now going to the store.  It was now very clear to me that we weren’t going to be making the train because time management is not anyone’s forte here.  Granted, I am a bit of time Nazi, but that only happened because of people who refuse to plan their day and time accordingly.  But I’m ranting about time when it’s not necessary. 

After getting caught in the now famous Siberian rain storms, I was soaking wet and did have to concede and go home to dry off.  Perhaps the universe was trying to keep me off the three o’clock train, who knows.  But we finally made it on the five o’clock train, which departed late.  If I’ve learned anything from traveling it’s that patience is my best friend and worst enemy. 

After arriving in the middle of nowhere I felt the twinge of something I haven’t felt in ages, the thrill of being somewhere new.  It’s easy to fall into the jaded mentality of ‘been there, done that’ it happens to all of us who travel around so much, but this excitement, this feeling of being alive…it’s what helps me get out of bed most mornings.  The realization that you are in fact doing something new and seeing something that perhaps none of your childhood friends of family will never see, this is what makes it all worthwhile. 

Once I came down from my high of being alive my eyes took in the landscape.  A famous philosopher once said, ‘where ever you are, there you are’ and I was there.  Endless amounts of trees, birch and cottonwood to be exact, lush fields of green weeds and a perfectly blue sky with picturesque clouds.  This is where the perfect village should be.  And lo and behold, it was.  There was a quaint store that greeted us with spray painted promises of beer and ice-cream, and after the 2 kilometer walk, I was so happy about the idea of ice-cream, but alas all they had was beer.  Three refrigerators of beer.  No water or juice or ice-cream, just beer.  It’s as funny as it is depressing.  To be fair, they did also have food, just nothing that I wanted, which was ice-cream.  Ice-cream aside, we did get beer.  Dacha without beer is like dancing without music.  One of the many things I enjoy about Russia is that in the summer all bets are off when it comes to being conservative.  People are not afraid to run around in their underwear; men, women and children, it’s all acceptable and even encouraged.  There’s nothing I love more than buying things from an overweight babushka wearing a head scarf and her way too thin bra.  Try getting that image out of your head.  Or the guy who just doesn’t eat enough carbs and you can see every bone is body.  Also not sexy. Put on a shirt people.  Sheez.  I was feeling very over dressed in my short skirt and tank top compared to everyone in the little shop and was just anxious to rest and see the dacha, plus, it was getting ready to rain again.

  

Once we reached the house, I am happy to report that it was cute; adorable actually.  It was two levels, electricity, and we were welcomed by blooming peonies. Any time a Russian says something is bad, you just can’t believe them. We promptly set up some music and Sasha began to make the mandatory shashlik.  A neighbor came over to introduce himself, which I found quite surprising and enjoyable until he decided to check me out in his underwear.  The only time it's acceptable to check people out in underwear is 1) if they are hot strippers and they have hot stripper bodies 2) if they are wearing cool or sexy underwear.  If you are wearing less than fashionable underwear and not a hot and sexy stripper then just keep your eyes to yourself.  Anyway this neighbor returned an hour later because we were dancing and I was happily singing along and he accused Sasha of not being Russian.  I'm not sure why it mattered, but it annoyed me.  Only here do people argue about your heritage.  On any given day people think that I'm from Turkey or Georgia or in some extreme cases, China.  No one ever believes that I'm American; someone should really tell me what an American is supposed to look like.  Aside from that, he seemed pleasant.

After overeating shashlik and tomatoes and admitting defeat against the mosquitoes we decided to hang out inside.  I found it to be quite cozy and for the first time in months I was able to sleep on a real bed and it was soft.  Nothing like the wooden thing I sleep on in the city, so I think I slipped into a short coma.  In the morning I was more than happy to help pull weeds and water since I do miss having a garden, but it suddenly hit me that people do this every weekend.  I can't imagine traveling and walking so far to spend 30 hours doing manual garden work. I wouldn't even want to visit this place that often, which is perhaps why the dacha is losing some interest among young people.  Isn't it just easier to have a house with a garden?

The train was filled with people returning to the city, but they looked more tired that we were, possibly because they had been working under the hot sun all weekend.  Perhaps it was also because they had gone the whole weekend nearly naked and it annoyed them.  But now that I'm really thinking about it, perhaps I'm just being too judgmental, after all, what's wrong with being half naked?  Maybe these people are onto something.  Food for thought.