My first week ended with an invitation to Ester’s Dacha, a country house <pronounced dah-cha where ‘ch’ sound is like in chair>. These are cottages within train distance of Moscow that the Moscovites own and use when they want to get away from the city/smoke/pollution/asphalt/cement etc. Apparently, the more expensive ones are closer to Moscow, which somehow doesn’t make sense to me as I would think the farther away from the city, the cleaner the air and overall atmosphere, at least that’s what it felt like to me as we traveled there (yes I know if the dacha is closer it takes less time to get there and since it’s closer to Moscow the real estate value might be higher, but still…)
So anyway, this weekend I really got to see how beautiful Russia really is. Between rolling hills, small rivers, forests, and the clean country air, it was dachtastic! (a new word composed from the words ‘dacha’ and fantastic, with the definition as ‘as fantastic as being at a dacha’) This word might be used throughout this post so it’s important to know its meaning. Another phrase spontaneously created is ‘dached out’ used to express when ‘one has had too much of a dacha. However, a more general meaning has been proposed to include when one has had too much of something, usually a situation, location, or hang-out spot.’ An example is: After spending the entire month in the country side we were all dached out and ready to return to the bustling city life we had previously left behind.
We met Ester at the northeastern side of the city after the afternoon classes at Komsomolskaya station to change from the metro to the train. We took a commuter train to her dacha which is in between Moscow and Tver. It was a comfortable ride that took about 90 minutes. It was basically a series of booth seats on either side of where a table might be but wasn’t lined up on both sides of an aisle-way. I took advantage of the open windows to snap some photos:
A station in between the dacha station and Moscow.A powerplant? on the way looked cool.Tracks. I liked these shots so I took a lot of different ones that all kinda look the same. But you can read the station name here: “XOBPNHO” where it’s a reverse N. Pronounced sort of like Hovrino or Havrino depending if the accent is on the first o or the i. I’m learning Cyrillic!Some huge river along our path. I can’t seem to figure out which river it is though. Probably the one between Tver and Moscow but google maps won’t show me the name.Beautiful landscape. As we said on our train ride, “Some fields to frolic in.”Some Dachas!Cool abandoned traincars. There were some abandoned military vehicles as well along the journey. Makes ya wonder, don’t know about what, but one could wonder.Dachaville! definition: a close gathering of dachas resembling something like a village or town.A final tracks photo in the direction we were heading.
And we arrived at the Dacha…
Ester’s station to her Dacha. She wouldn’t let us walk across the tracks like the locals. Instead we had to use the tourist walkway that went overhead.I’m envious that this kid gets to ride a bike and I have yet to acquire one. He is Ester’s neighbor and came over for a little until he fell out of a tree (6 ft) and bellyflopped onto the brick path that just hit his stomach area, while the head area and legs hit earth. He made a thwack/thud sound and his mom came and took him home. (He’s okay though)
Ester’s Dacha in the background (one of two buildings) with some random dude in front of it to the left. Nah that guy’s my current roommate Austin from Santa Barbara.
Ester’s living room. From left to right: Michael, John, Natalie, Marc, Austin. Guy in front I think is Daniel.The upstairs loft equipped with a ladder to get there.Old stove from a previous generation, in the other building where some of us proceeded to play some card games for some of the night, not realizing that some of the decks had only 36 cards. Russians play a game called Durock that uses only 36 cards.John, Michael, and Lenny (left to right) cooking sausages Dacha-style. I’m holding the sausage from the stick in the bottom left corner. Needless to say, once we put em in the bread with some ketchup and cheese they were dachtastic.We took a walk the next morning around the neighborhood and saw a real-life scarecrow. It didn’t come alive though like in Wizard of Oz.I beat Ester to the station so I could jump in between the tracks to take this photo. Incredibly, moments after I took this photo, getting ready to take the next, two trains, one from either direction, sped past me surrounding me in the middle of the tracks. I was spun so quickly I began getting vertical acceleration and helicoptered up and over the trains onto the station platform. Not really though, but that would have been cool. It wasn’t dangerous at all. No trains were coming for a while.Arriving at the Moscow Train Station, our trip ended. I made sure to quote James Franco in Pineapple Express before leaving the dacha saying, “Let’s roll, I’m done with these woods.” We just missed the rain in Moscow. It stopped once we arrived but there were residue puddles.
On our way home taking the ring line, I was able to snap some photos of the incredible station artwork.
Amazing decoration within the metro stations. This was from the Komsomolskaya ring line (brown line) station.Waiting for the train to come to take it around to our light blue line transfer. The artwork is super detailed. And indeed, little to no vandalism.This is a mosaic in the middle of the station, one of many (different scenes in each). It looks like Lenin or Stalin accompanied by the hammer and sickle. Probably Lenin; the Russians don’t like Stalin too much.
This weekend was definitely dachtastic. But I definitely was not all dached-out when we left. I did have stuff that needed getting done when I came back to the dorm, mainly more partying with the locals in our dorm. But sleep now, morning comes and I want to run before Russian Language class.
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