Dacha Leonid Parfenov: photo

“We have been living in this house for 13 years,” says Elena Chekalova, Parfenov’s wife. – It was built and furnished gradually. And there are no expensive things here. Some of the furniture was purchased for little money in a shopping center. Then they removed the standard doors from the purchased cabinets and inserted those that were found in the villages. Armchairs and sofas were sheathed with covers with patterns, they even painted light bulbs. Everything was brought to mind with his own hand. I don’t like rich houses, where everything is monotonous, according to the catalog. There is no individuality in them. And here every detail of the interior is a whole story. For example, in Lenin’s study, the main decoration is the shield, which he brought from Ethiopia when he was shooting the film “Living Pushkin”. It was a tough shoot. The husband was taken prisoner by the bandits. Their group was robbed, and then they even wanted to shoot. They somehow persuaded the intruders to let them go.

And behind every thing in our house some kind of plot is hidden. We have pictures of religious content, painted by peasants 200-300 years ago. This is an apocryphal painting. There is a lot of old furniture that Mikhail Surov, Leni’s friend, took out of the villages. Well, how did you take it out? I changed it. People wanted to put some awful wall in the house, and the wonderful closet in which their ancestors kept things was carried to the trash heap. And this was typical of all Soviet citizens. My grandmother, who was born into a noble family before the revolution, had beautiful furniture. When she was a child, Mom and Dad took her to the market and bought a nightmarish wall. I did not have the right to vote, I could not protest then. Therefore, now for my husband and I, every such thing is a relic. It is these antiquities that create the very comfort, light, energy in our home. “

I first encountered subsistence farming in Sicily, on the estate of a local baron. His family has been the main wine and olive oil producer on the island for many years. They have everything of their own: bread, cheese, butter, fruit, meat. And the food they eat is grown by them, not bought. 80 workers work on hundreds of hectares of land. And, what is most surprising, at dinner they all sit at the same table with the baron. They live as one big family. Therefore, when we also decided to grow vegetables and animals and invited an assistant, we did everything to make him feel at home here. After all, the lack of time has become the main problem in organizing subsistence farming for us. And you simply cannot do without the help of a knowledgeable person.

At the moment we have 30 rabbits, half a dozen chickens, guinea fowls. There were turkeys, but we ate them all safely. One of these days we will go for new ones. We usually buy them in June and feed them until the end of November. They grow up to 18 kilograms. This year we tried to raise broiler chickens, but nothing came of it. Recently they got caught in the rain, and half died. It turned out that they do not tolerate dampness. We decided not to start them anymore, especially since these are artificially bred birds. We don’t have big animals, cattle. I believe that we must come to this. So far, we have enough of those that are now. The rabbit has just amazing meat – dietary and tasty. We practically do not drink milk. Now science has already established that over the years it should be consumed as little as possible, it is useful only for children. But Lenya loves homemade yogurt very much, so I buy milk and make yogurt myself.

Although I try to go to stores as little as possible. We started a farm so that we wouldn’t buy anything once again. It’s a pity that not every person can afford this. This is a luxury. All these modified products with labels and barcodes are killing people. Obesity has become just some kind of epidemic. What is the reason for this? With the fact that people do not eat properly, they live wrong. And then they pay crazy money for diets. They torment themselves, their body. And at the same time, everyone is getting fat and getting fat. And if they just thought: why did our ancestors not go on any diets and at the same time were absolutely normal in build? Because they used to eat whole, not processed foods, not refined. If you have grown something yourself, then you can no longer count proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Indeed, organic food contains fiber, complex carbohydrates – what our body needs so much. Leni is constantly asked: “How is it, your wife cooks so much, and you are so thin?” This is because he eats normal food. See how he looks great in his 50s. And this is largely due to the fact that we have our own products.

When I didn’t have a plot, I grew greenery on the windowsill in my apartment. Lenin’s parents did the same. Most of the year they lived in the village, but when they moved to Cherepovets for the winter, pots of parsley and dill appeared on the windowsill.

But now I have almost everything on the beds: tomatoes, radishes, Jerusalem artichoke, carrots. It is not known what pesticides may be in commercial vegetables. And we even made a compost pit on the site. Dung, grass, leaves – everything goes there. It closes well, there is no smell. But there are organic, harmless fertilizers.

At the same time, I have never done anything like this before. But my whole life was based on the experience of my parents. It PUSHED away, tried to be further from it. I didn’t want to be the same city person. My dad was a journalist, my mother was a linguist. They are people who have devoted themselves entirely to intellectual work. They were absolutely indifferent to everyday life. They could buy dumplings, sausages. It doesn’t matter what is. The main thing is theater, books. I didn’t like it terribly. We have never had a comfortable home. Therefore, now I am trying to do everything to create that very warmth.

We made the cabinets in the national style, and the things are kept in the appropriate

For me, the concept of a family lunch, dinner is very important. Maybe that’s why we have such a good relationship with our children. This is not a food cult. It’s just that when everyone is sitting at the table, there is a feeling of celebration. And children want to come to such a house. They are really interested in it. It is not a duty when the child resorts to a 5-minute snack with his parents, and then immediately goes to the club. The daughter of her friends invites into the house, the son of the girls introduces us. They want us to see who they are communicating with. My son recently had a birthday. He and his friends celebrated it in a restaurant. The guests asked: “Why are there no parents? We so want them to be here. ” I was not in Moscow at that moment, but Lenya came. The friends were delighted. Agree, this is not such a common situation.

Home gatherings bring the family together very much. This gives you the opportunity to relax and talk. And the children have a sense of security. It is very important. Home is a place where they can always come.