dachas

2025. Vol.10. №3.

Crimean dachas: History and the current development of rural-urban space

Oct 22 2025

Gusakov T. Yu. Crimean dachas: History and the current development of rural-urban space // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2025. V.10. №3. P. 261-288.

EDN: OUCJGC

Annotation

The article considers the dacha movement on the Crimean Peninsula as a unique phenomenon in the development of rural areas under the transformation of spatial organization of society. The author reconstructs the historical evolution of dacha settlement — from the first estates and dachas of the Russian Empire to the numerous gardening and dacha cooperatives in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. Based on pre-revolutionary and contemporary statistical, cartographic and legal sources and field studies, the author identifies the main stages and mechanisms in the formation of the dacha landscape in Crimea, its morphological and functional features, focusing on the current role of non-commercial associations as integrating rural territories into urban lifestyles, mechanisms of social mobility and multi-locality. The article considers institutional uncertainty, land fragmentation, infrastructural challenges and environmental risks associated with the uneven and often spontaneous dacha expansion. Dacha and gardening settlements have become an integral part of the settlement system, affecting landscapes, land use and social structure, promoting the development of new types of rural-urban communities and suburbanization. The article summarizes trends of the territorial distribution of dacha associations, provides examples of local practices and settlement transformation, stresses the need to consider the features of dacha development in regional policy and spatial planning, to ensure an inventory and institutionalization of such settlement forms for the sustainable development of Crimea.

Keywords

Population geography, dachas, rural settlement, suburbanization, ruralurban communities, spatial mobility, spatial planning, informal settlements, Crimea.

About the author

Timur Y. Gusakov, Researcher, Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Vernadskogo Prosp., 82, Moscow, 119571, Russia.
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Additional Info

Submitted Wednesday, 21 May 2025
Reviewed Thursday, 03 July 2025
Copyright © Auhtors, 2025
Distribution Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

2023. Vol.8. №2.

“There is and there will be territorial reformatting of rural spaces”

Aug 20 2023

Pokrovsky N.E., Nikulin A.M. “There is and there will be territorial reformatting of rural spaces” // The Russian Peasant Studies. 2023. V.8. №2. P. 140-158.

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2023-8-2-140-158

Annotation

In the interview, Professor N. E. Pokrovsky describes his scientific path related to the issues of rural-urban development. Based on his experience as originally a city dweller, Pokrovsky considers how and why city-dwellers move to the countryside with their projects and plans to change the rural reality; identifies the life trajectories of different social strata of city dwellers in their rural searches; focuses on the essential characteristics of rural changes in recent decades, including those identified on the basis of his long-term observations in the Ugorsk rural development project in the Kostroma Region. As a sociologist-Americanist, Pokrovsky refers to the American roots of the rural lifestyle — ideas of T. Jefferson and H. Thoreau — and to his personal impressions of rural regions of the United States. Pokrovsky also mentions the spatial rethinking of rural-urban development as related, on the one hand, to the criticism of life in large cities, and, on the other hand, to the new economic-technological, culturalhistorical and recreational-environmental practices in rural areas. In conclusion, he considers the possibility of a new mapping of rural spaces in order to assess the development of local territories.

Keywords

City, village, suburbanization, deurbanization/counterurbanization, migration, dachas, ecology, Henry Thoreau, Ugor project.

About the authors

Nikita E. Pokrovsky, DSc (Sociology), Chief Researcher, Institute of Sociology, Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Professor, National Research University Higher School of Economics. Myasnitskaya St., 20, Moscow, 101000.
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Alexander M. Nikulin, PhD (Economics), Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Vice-Rector for Research, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. Prosp. Vernadskogo, 82, Moscow, 119571.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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