Russian Gardens

[Guest guest]

(CBS) It’s summer in Russia, and for most Russians, that means it’s dacha

season. Even those without their own house in the country usually have at

least a small plot of land on which to grow vegetables and escape the city.

It’s one of the nicer legacies of the old Soviet Union, when most employers

gave their workers a slice of country life.

 

At this time of year, Russians try to spend as much time as possible out at

the dacha, tending their gardens. This year, they are also escaping what has

been Moscow’s hottest summer in a decade.

 

I’m one of them. Every weekend, I head with a group of Russian, British and

Spanish friends to the summer dacha we rent about a 45-minute drive from the

Kremlin, 12 miles outside the Moscow city limits.

 

For me, tending my vegetable garden is just a hobby. For many of my

neighbors, growing vegetables at their dachas is a matter of life or death.

The potatoes, beets and carrots they grow now will keep them alive next

winter.

 

The house we rent is a big wooden one, with four bedrooms on two floors, a

small kitchen and a big glassed-in porch. But it’s a far cry from the summer

houses my friends have in the U.S. We have no running water, so we have to

fetch it from a well in a corner of the yard. And we have no toilet, either,

just an outhouse.

 

“It’s too primitive for me,” commented my mother when she visited our dacha a

month ago. “But if you think of it as camping, it’s pretty good.”

 

The huge yard is filled with apple trees, raspberries and currants and dotted

with patches of cucumber, zucchini, peas and butternut squash. There is also

a small greenhouse where we planted tomatoes.

 

We’ve spent many a pleasant evening grilling shish-kabobs or chicken legs on

the grill, sitting under the apple trees, drinking shots of cold vodka until

the wee hours.

 

But a glance over our fence tells a different and much more common story. An

extended family lives in the dacha next door all year round. They have added

some insulation and a small gas heater to winterize their small house. They,

like us, have no running water and no indoor toilet — especially inconvenient

when it is 10 degrees below zero outside.

 

Moreover, our neighbors have dug up every inch of their yard and have

vegetables planted everywhere. The ground is carpeted with root vegetables -

like potatoes and beets - that will hold all winter, plus cucumbers and

tomatoes that they can pickle and put into jars.

 

<BR>Those vegetables are their insurance policy for the coming year. Only the

wife works and her salary as a flower seller can hardly be enough to buy more

than bread, sugar and a few other essentials. But our neighbors know they

will be okay as long as they can live off their garden.

 

A look over our fence provides a glimpse of what is going on all over Russia.

Aside from electricity and television, the majority of Russians are living

much the way their ancestors did 100 years ago — growing their own food and

depending on themselves for survival. Millions of people are unemployed.

Millions more work but don’t receive their salaries. With a presidential

election campaign nearing next year, no one knows what kind of political

instability lies ahead. So this summer more than ever, Russians are hoping

for a big harvest to get them through the coming winter.

 

And it looks like a bumper crop may be on the way. It’s been a hot June.

Temperatures have been up near 90 degrees, so the vegetables are flowering

early and the plants are already tall.

 

But even the biggest harvest can only go so far. Russia’s problems are so vast

and so complicated that there is little chance that the economic situation

will improve anytime soon. That means Russians will likely depend on their

little dacha gardens for many, many years to come.