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A hammock, flower beds and evening tea on the veranda … Or maybe a vegetable garden, raspberries from a bush and preparations for the winter? Let’s recall 5 dacha scenes from our favorite Soviet films, and at the same time we will trace how dacha life has changed over the decades.
“Hearts of Four”
1941 directed by Konstantin Yudin
The Murashov sisters – cold and strict Galina (Valentina Serova) and frivolous Shurochka (Lyudmila Tselikovskaya) – go to the dacha. The eldest is to teach mathematics at a nearby military unit, the other is to prepare for the re-examination. The girls have fans who also happen to be nearby. The characters get into funny situations, and in the end everyone finds their love.
The cheerful and light sitcom was handed over in February 1941 and at that time seemed to the authorities too light and out of touch with reality. However, already in 1945, the Soviet people, tired of the exhausting war, needed an optimistic view of a peaceful future. The tape was taken off the shelf and launched in January.
The equipped dacha, where you can take a nap in a hammock, go fishing and traditionally drink evening tea with jam, has become for the audience a sign of the coming prosperous post-war life.
In general, in the thirties, workers and employees of large enterprises could have dachas – for them, from the mid-1930s, the so-called collective dachas were built. For example, on Rublyovka, the People’s Commissariat of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection built 103 plywood houses for its employees. A family of up to 4 people received two-room housing with an area of 15,4 square meters. m with kitchen 5.
The party elite lived much more comfortably – at the state expense, large officials built themselves country residences. And smaller employees settled in the former noble dachas for several families.
“Burnt by the Sun”
1994 directed by Nikita Mikhalkov
This film just shows a luxurious dacha of the Soviet nomenklatura – a large plot with trees, located near a river or lake, a spacious house. A housekeeper is attached to the cottage (she was brilliantly played by Svetlana Kryuchkova).
The dacha life of divisional commander Kotov resembles the pre-revolutionary noble life. Time passes slowly, a large family gathers at a round table with a knitted tablecloth and has long conversations … It is 1936 in the yard. Time seems to have frozen, and the heroes do not yet know that this is the calm before the storm of political repressions…
The appearance of the once lost friend (Oleg Menshikov) of the wife of the divisional commander (Ingeborg Dapkunaite) brings confusion to the ranks of summer residents tired by the sun. At first, the commotion seems joyful, but then it becomes clear that all this wonderful life will soon come to an end.
“Watch out for the car”
1966 directed by Eldar Ryazanov
Already in Khrushchev’s times, townspeople could allocate suburban areas for a vegetable garden. On some, construction was strictly prohibited. In other cases, the size and format of the houses were determined by strict rules.
And in the sixties, when the film takes place, gardening partnerships began to form with plots of 600-800 square meters. m. Having received his “six acres”, a Soviet citizen could build a summer house. In a famous scene from the movie “Beware of the Car” we see how this happened. Dense fences are being erected, construction work is underway on the sites.
And if the colorful hero of Anatoly Papanov grows a “kulubnik” in his dacha garden for sale, then his irresponsible son-in-law Dima Semitsvetov (Andrey Mironov) clearly dreams of a two-story mansion. The one that, together with the plot, was confiscated from a neighbor – the deputy director of a knitwear factory.
The dacha, along with a personal Volga, homemade knick-knacks, cocktails and a Grundig tape recorder, personifies in the picture the philistine luxury that speculators and dishonest citizens, as a rule, aspired to and could get.
“Gentlemen of Fortune”
1971, directed by Alexander Sery
In Soviet times, people of science and art could also get a dacha, but only those who were awarded such a prize by the state. In films, it was customary to show how a certain professor or artist lives in a large apartment, drives a private car and relaxes in the country.
So the scientist from the film “Gentlemen of Fortune” owns a comfortable dacha – spacious and warm, our heroes hide there in winter, basking by the fireplace.
“Moscow does not believe in tears”
1979 directed by Vladimir Menshov
If in the sixties for Ryazanov the dacha was an attribute of philistinism with a minus sign, then already in the seventies, together with director Vladimir Menshov, we look at it without condemnation.
Tosya (Raisa Ryazanova), one of the three heroines who came to Moscow to try their luck, marries a modest builder. At the beginning of the film, we see how they begin to equip the dacha – Nikolai leads the guests around the site and tells how he plans to equip it. The correct Soviet citizen uses the dacha for its intended purpose – grows fruit and vegetable crops.
After 20 years, all three women routinely peel vegetables for home canning on the veranda.