After months of delays and last minute cancelations I
finally managed to go to a Ukrainian Dacha last weekend. A Dacha is a country
house that was give as a gift [it come from the Russian verb “to give” Dats] to
the old workers in the soviet era for weekend retreats and is somewhere that
many city dwellers go to relax at the weekends, or constantly work on and
renovate.
One of my now ex students Anna invited me and one of the
other teachers [Neil] to come and visit her families Dacha.
First step was the obligatory hour long Marshootka journey
to Krivass, a small town outside of Dnipropetrovsk and an hours journey away.
The first thing that I noticed was a gorgeous new Orthodox church there. Many
of the old churches were taken down during the Soviet purge of religion.
After a quick shop for vegtables and lavash [a form of
flatbread] we headed off to the Dacha. In all I think the walk took about half
an hour and it was all in glorious 28 degrees. Having awoken to a fairly cool
morning heat I had decided to take a jumper with me on the journey and was by
this point thinking that perhaps this wasn’t my best decision.
Upon arriving to the Dacha the decision was made to venture
off into the nearby forest and explore (and throw a Frisbee). As we walked
through the trees I wondered, aloud, if there was a road or river near as I
could hear some loud background noise a kin to a dim hum. Upon uttering this
comment I was reliably informed [see put down] with a comment that actually
that was just the wind and that I was truly living up to the London city
stereotype.
When we arrived back to the Dacha we set upon ourselves to
build a small barbeque to cook our shashlik upon [a form of kebab]. It didn’t
take long to find some cinder blocks, dried pieces of wood and we were off and
cooking! I can certainly say that the chicken and peppers were cooked well and
thoroughly to Neil’s own personal taste [see charcoal].
After a long and extremely filling meal we travelled down to
the local river and tried our hardest to play Frisbee there. However the wind
had now picked up and made ever attempt either go off course, be overpowered or
underpowered.
At around 5 o’clock we packed all our equipment and set off
on our journey back to Dnipropetrovsk. The returning Marshootka journey was
equally long but felt a perfect end to a long day. Although we had ended up
doing a fair amount of walking and I returned to Dnipro feeling very tired I
also felt very relaxed. I can certainly see why Dachas are so popular.
