printThe Social Roles of Russian Dacha Owners, or What Is the “Veranda Effect”
Gladysheva E.A.
Postgraduate student, Samara University, Samara, Russia el.alex.gladysheva@ya.ru
Gladysheva E.A. The Social Roles of Russian Dacha Owners, or What Is the “Veranda Effect”. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2026. No 6. P. 52-63
The author examines institutionalized practices of dacha farming in contemporary Russia. The dacha social institution satisfies the needs for rest and recuperation, family leisure and social ties, creative self-realization through gardening and vegetable growing, as well as communication with nature and the reception of its gifts. The roles of dacha owners, reconstructed by the author based on in-depth interview data, rest on three groups of meanings motivating action: 1) escapism and compensation, 2) selfrealization and identity construction, and 3) social integration and communication. The “veranda effect” refers to an attachment to spaces outside urban life. Here, physical labor becomes a form of leisure, privacy behind the fence coexists with communication on the veranda, and the sense of ownership is legitimized not by economic gain but by an existential striving for independence. The author proposes that Russian residents constitute a civilization of dacha owners, underpinned by a dialectical compromise that enables bearers of urban culture to respond adaptively to the challenges of modernization without renouncing an archetypal connection with nature.
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