The intention was to use these new administrative structures to push through centrally directed measures more effectively. By the beginning of 1926, the Moscow soviet had formulated a set of rules for the drawing up of contracts and the renting out of municipalized dachas to institutions and individuals. The rent varied according to the occupation of the tenants: for people working in state, Party, trade union, and cooperative organizations the annual payment was to fall between 5 and 10 percent of the cost of the dacha; factory and office workers and artisans were to pay 3–10 percent; but the “nonlaboring element” was expected to pay not less than 15 percent.32
These new regulations were, however, at best only partially successful in putting dacha ownership and rental on a sound legal footing. Dacha municipalization was never conducted with the thoroughness suggested by policy statements on the subject. There were three main reasons for this failure. First, the huge housing crisis, which, once the Civil War had ended, turned former dacha areas around Moscow and St. Petersburg into shanty settlements inhabited by daily commuters (and so a house, even if classified as a dacha, was likely to be appropriated for year-round habitation). Second, the weakness and disorganization of the local authorities, which often were not able to keep pace with new instructions from the center. Third, the openness of the instructions to variable interpretation (a “lordly” dacha, for example, was very much in the eye of the beholder, and a timely and well-directed bribe would presumably have swayed the judgment of many inspectors from the local housing department).
In the 1920s, Muscovites were so desperate for living space that they were not put
off by the disastrous state of most suburban housing. The municipalized stock in 1923
contained 725 dachas (12.8 percent) that were “dilapidated,” 1,771 (31.1 percent)
that were “semidilapidated,” and 2,531 (31.1 percent) that required “minor repairs.”33 Yet reports suggest that dachas were almost never left vacant; a very high proportion,
moreover, were occupied by commuting year-round residents. As one journalist reported
of a village outside Moscow: “Most of the dachniki here are dachniki against their
will, they live here all year round because it’s closer to the city where they can’t
find an apartment.”34 Special concessions were made to encourage residents to rebuild the housing stock:
if a dacha required “major repairs,” tenants were exempted from rent for the first
five years they lived there.35 The regional and local authorities received numerous requests for permission to demolish
existing buildings and start afresh. Given the acute shortage of housing in the postrevolutionary
era, it is little wonder that many people tried to take over or build themselves houses
outside the city. The building control committee (
