GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Refuge for the soul
MICHAL BONCZA recommends an exquisitely illustrated publication which charts the origins, rise and fall of the seminal Russian dacha
Arkhangelsk dachas panorama
[Fyodor Savintsev]
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
Dacha
by Anna Benn (words) and Fyodor Savintsev (photos)
Fuel £26.95
DACHAS are as much a state of mind as they are actual physical constructs.
They are a timeless cultural identity that evolved from an imperial legacy of recognition for services rendered — instead of an OBE you got a dacha — to what became an attainable, classless aspiration of city dwellers in the aftermath of the October Revolution.
Their association with the need for a retreat that offered physical and spiritual solace is, perhaps, best defined by Fyodor Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment: “It was terribly hot outside, stuffy and crowded; everywhere there was whitewash, scaffolding, brick, dust and that certain summer stench so well known to every Petersburger who doesn’t have the means to rent a dacha.”
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