This book is about the mystique of dacha life, and "dacha" is a universal word. It refers to a plot in a gardening (non-commercial) partnership, often abbreviated to SNT on signs, as well as a four-story country house and a garden with a temporary shed tucked away in the corner. It has been called by different names: estate, fazenda, or some kind of Monrepo. Three pillars support the life of a successful person: dacha, apartment, and car. Among them, a piece of land, separated from the world by a chain-link fence or stone wall, is the most important. There, soil and fate breathe. From the first steps among the tall grass to death among the beds with pulled weeds in hand, it surrounds the Russian person. City laws do not apply in the gardening partnership; a special brotherhood or fierce enmity arises, where a neighbor is ready to go at another with a scythe over the shadow that has fallen on the greenhouse with tomatoes. The heroes of this book are diverse; there are academics, journalists, and businessmen, but they are united by the dacha. And anything is possible at the dacha: in the forest, the dead gathering of KSP-skiers suddenly comes to life, a magical item hidden from prying eyes in the basement transforms time and space, and the lovely couple next door grows pumpkins to turn them into prisons for souls.
Vladimir Berezin is a prose writer, literary critic, and journalist. The author of realistic and fantastic prose, a biography of Viktor Shklovsky. A laureate of the "New World" magazine awards, the A. and B. Strugatsky award, "Moscow Observer", a finalist for the "Big Book" award, and others.
