Tea at the Dacha

Here we are at the dacha (country house) in Komarovo, north of St. Petersburg. We took an old, spare, Soviet-era train out there, about 1 hour. The day was cool and rainy at times. The dacha belongs to friends of Megan, retired professors of botany and their Scottish terrier. They have a beautiful garden with many vegetables, including cucumbers in a green house for pickling, and current bushes and apple trees. The dachas are fairly close together, but it's still very quiet as there is no town center to speak of (just a train stop and small store), and most people live in the city and stay in their dachas for 2-3 months at the most, in the summer. The dachas in Komarovo have belonged mainly to academics (and writers like Akhmatova, who is buried here), though that is changing now that the state no longer organizes dacha villages by profession. Not long after we arrived, we sat down for tea, replete with the samovar (traditional Russian way of heating tea water) seen here, and a wonderful pirog (pastry) made with their own apples. Pine and birch boughs dripped just outside the window, and all was cozy inside. Megan's friends are wonderfully warm, friendly people; I think at least 4 toasts were given during supper. I bonded with Galina, Megan's older friend, over our mutual love of Faulkner, with whom many Russians identify; they call him a "Russian who lived in America," I think because of his blend of dark humor and incisive understanding of human psychology. Of course, Megan had to translate two ways, as I don't know Russian and they don't know English, but so much is communicated through the eyes anyway. --Scott