"Every weekend, Kseniya Abramova and her mother pile her fluffy white Samoyed and six cats into their car for the five-hour drive from St. Petersburg to work in their garden, where they hope to grow enough fruit, vegetables and nuts to last the year.
Like many Russians, Ms. Abramova is trying to protect against high inflation and potential food-supply disruptions related to sanctions. "Everything is ridiculously expensive. It's a catastrophe. So we are plowing away in the garden from dawn till dusk," Ms. Abramova said.
Spending the summer in a dacha in the lush countryside is a ritual for Russian families. This year, more people are gardening to offset the soaring cost of food. Food prices were up 19.1% in June compared with the same month in 2021, while prices for some products such as sugar, up 48% compared with a year earlier, and pasta, up 28% in the same period, have risen far more.
"Russian citizens, and especially those of the older generation, have lived through a long succession of various upheavals and take a certain pride in being able to navigate hardship, resorting to their own resources," said Olga Shevchenko, a sociologist at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., and author of the book "Crisis and the Everyday in Postsocialist Moscow."
"People retreat into a kind of self-protective cocoon of their private efforts at survival," Ms. Shevchenko said.
Close to half of Russians own a country house or a garden plot, according to a survey this year by the Russian Center for Public Opinion and Market Research.
About 39% of those surveyed said they planned to spend their summer vacation at a country home or garden plot, up 5% from last year.
Most said they use their land to grow food.
Ms. Abramova, a 43-year-old photographer, says her income dropped by half this year. She and her mother have been working on her family's 2 1/2-acre plot in a remote area near Pskov not far from Russia's border with Estonia.
In the spring, she invested in a ventilation and irrigation system for her greenhouses and sprayed pesticides in her orchard to protect her cherry, apple, plum and pear trees. Her pride is a 40-tree nut orchard. The women have already made pickles and strawberry jam from this season's harvest. They will make vodka infusions when the currants and sour cherries ripen.
She doesn't love the hard work but says the garden helps her cope with the growing stress in the rest of her life. "The plants grow, and they don't care what else is happening in the world," Ms. Abramova said.
Government officials have been encouraging gardening and farming. President Vladimir Putin signed a law recently that eases rules related to community farms and allows the keeping of chickens and rabbits for personal use in garden plots.
This spring, the deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma, Vladislav Davankov, proposed to extend the May holidays to give people more time to plant. The measure wasn't taken up by parliament. One auto factory did give farmland to furloughed workers to plant potatoes.
Yana Oparina's mother-in-law bought a summer house near the Finnish border because travel has become more complicated and costly. Ms. Oparina started potatoes, carrots and radishes. She had to visit three plant nurseries to find the honeysuckle she wanted.
The family used to visit Finland, but now the country is joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, living so close to a member of the military alliance is concerning. "Politics crept into all aspects of life, from rising prices to worries about the border," Ms. Oparina said. "But we try to shoo away those thoughts and enjoy our garden and the woods nearby." She plans to gather mushrooms near the property this year and learn to fish." [1]
1. World News: Russians Turn to Gardening to Mitigate Sanctions
Chernova, Yuliya.
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 25 July 2022: A.8.
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