Dacha in Post-Soviet Russia: Institutional Analysis

Abstract

This paper tries to analyze the phenomenon of «dacha» according to D. North's approach to institutions. The authors explore how dacha has become mass phenomenon in the late USSR, and how social and economic role of dacha increased in the Post-Soviet period. The specific features of the Post-Soviet Russia’s deurbanization has been studied. In particular, these features include large engagements of citizens in the rural way of life associated with dacha. It is shown how «dacha-ization» attributed to the crony capitalism. The economic role of dacha in Post-Soviet Russia is confirmed by comprehensive statistics, in particular. These data show that in Russia dacha serves rather as the source of food production than as place for leisure and recreation. The paper concludes that explicit priority of the model of organic agriculture in the dacha can be a kind of the solution of the problem of decreasing goods’ quality in the market economy (earlier described by one of the authors of the current paper). Moreover, this priority was fundamentally argued by D. I. Mendeleev. The authors believe that dacha will remain as an important institution for the Russians in coming years.

Keywords

• dacha
• institutional change
• institutions
• deurbanization
• Post-Soviet Russia