The Day We Almost Burned Down the Dacha

No sooner than I had arrived back from St. Petersburg and Moscow, Natalia (my host mom) and I decided to drive out to her dacha. We packed a few things, stuffed the cat into a tote bag, and shouldering everything, headed for the car. The cat behaved fairly well, though she easily escaped the tote and rampaged through the car. She soon quieted down and we had a very uneventful drive. 

The dacha is in a small town called Artyom, about an hour outside Vladivostok. It was a beautiful day with a breeze and not a cloud in sight. Everything was starting to leaf out, and grass had grown along the highway. We reached the dacha by about two in the afternoon. Her father had been living in it until he died, which wasn't long ago, but just looking at the outside reminded me of a haunted house. In theory, if everything was fixed up, repainted and replanted, it would be the loveliest little summer home. However, stepping through the gate, the piles of junk stood high in the large yard. Splintered wood, old sheet rock, rusting metal and broken glass lay half buried in dirt. Rusting oil cans were filled with old plastic, bottles of all colors and sizes lay everywhere, and stacks of warped plywood lined the side of the house. A rather frightening-looking ramshackle hut stood to one side near the house; I didn't quite know what it was for, or what it was made of. 

The house itself was big, but extremely worn on the outside. The inside...was not much better. The rooms were just filled with stuff. Most of it was old stuff: rusty, moldy, stained, bent, broken, torn or dusty. The plaster on the walls was falling off in chunks, revealing the sheet rock underneath, and even that was crumbling. There was a kitchen, living room and bedroom on the ground floor, but no furniture remained. Climbing up a ladder, we went to the second floor. There were two bedrooms there. Looking out the window, I learned the scary hut was the bathroom. 

The garden obviously hadn't been a garden for a very long time. There were a few rhubarbs growing, and some beautiful berry bushes. The trees were all apple or plum, but the rest of the yard was overgrown and filled with weeds. It wasn't a bad little place, if it were all fixed up it would be an absolutely beautiful garden. We set up a small picnic under one of the trees. I pulled a piece of plywood out from one of the piles and laid it on top of a rusty table frame. We spread out our tablecloth and settled down for a nice lazy day at the dacha. But of course, it didn't really work out that way. 

Natalia had a few chores in mind to do around the place. I didn't mind of course; it felt good to be back working in a garden. She said we would clear up all the dead grass in the yard. We found some rakes in the house and set to work. It was going to be a long day, as the yard was actually quite large. 

"No, no, no! Emma wait! You don't need to rake there!" Natalia hollered, as I had just started to rake at the edge of a plot of grass. She came over, and pulling out a lighter from her pocket, bent down and lit the dead grass. My heart stopped: the whole yard was flammable. However, if Natalia felt safe doing it, I figured I didn't need to worry. I was wrong.

It went alright for the first half hour. We raked some piles, lit them, and let the fire get rid of the dead plant material. Natalia made no attempt to stop it, even when it approached the edge of the yard where dead vines grew on the fence, and piles of wood lay. We had, by now, attracted the attention of the neighbors on the left, who had started pouring water on the ground on their side of the fence. They of course knew Natalia and were chatting, while watching the flames. However, things soon turned sour when it reached the upper right corner and caught a pile of dead plants and wood. With a whoosh, the corner went up in flames, and soon the fence did too. Luckily that side of the fence bordered a small alley, but the neighbors on that side soon popped out of their house too to watch. 

It got worse when the dead vines were soon on fire, and the fire raced down the fence to the scary toilet hut, which was only a few meters from the house. Natalia and I sat at the table, just watching it unfold. Natalia's calm kept me calm. Though we never said anything, we were both thinking that this was getting a little out of hand. 

"Natalia!" yelled a neighbor. "It's time to call the fire department!" 

The hut was now ablaze, and we discovered there was a pile of sheet rock in it too. The wood popped loudly and small explosions sent plumes of smoke high into the air. The most concerning part was we had no water with which to put it out. They had no hoses there, and the only water we had with us was what I had put into my water bottle before we left. To put out the fire with that would take a miracle rivaling that of feeding the five thousand. Natalia stood up, and I followed her out of the gate and around the road to a well. A good old-fashioned well stood at the end of the alley where the fire was. We grabbed what buckets we could find and set to work. I hauled up the water from the well and filled up the buckets. Natalia walked up the alley a ways and threw it on the flames.

It was almost comical how calm everyone was. Neighbors had begun to take notice and simply stood around watching it and chatting. Soon, a few of the neighbors were wandering down to the well with their buckets and lent a hand. No one was running, no one was yelling, no one was doing anything in particular. The people walked from the well to the fire, emptied the buckets and waltzed back, sometimes stopping to pet a dog or to chat with a friend. It had turned into quite the spectacle, and with all the onlookers, we could have sold tickets. 

The only indication of concern was that one of the neighbors had actually called the fire department. Soon, a monstrous fire truck pulled up and was expertly backed into the alley. Two men hopped out of the cab and walked around towards those of us gathered there. They grinned, shook hands all around, and stood with us watching the flames for a bit. Then, with the swiftness of a sloth, they unrolled a hose, hooked it onto the truck, and began hosing the flames. The man actually dressed in a fireman's uniform hosed down the hut, while the other one, dressed in a standard police uniform, stood with us and smoked a cigarette. 

The fire was soon extinguished, and the neighbors gradually dispersed. Natalia and I stood with the two firemen, watching the smoldering pile. Our chests were heaving, small holes were burnt in our shirts from sparks, and sweat beaded on our foreheads. It had been an interesting episode. The two men chatted for a while, delighted to find I was an American. They knew Natalia, as she had been a translator in their department years ago. They were invited to our barbecue on May first, and we parted ways. 

A little overwhelmed and extremely tired, we sat at our little table. We peeled hard boiled eggs and speared slices of sausage with knives. We ate and silently surveyed the yard. If possible, it looked even worse than when we had started. Everything three feet or lower was blackened: tree trunks, fence posts and (now) dead bushes. The grass was all burned away, and most of the fence posts along the alley had burned over, or had been hollowed by the fire.

A while later another man in a fire department uniform, sporting a clipboard and chewing gum, wandered round. He came in the yard, and sitting at our table with us, he asked some questions. 

"If he asks, I'll tell him I was smoking and that's how the fire started. If he finds out I started it myself there will be a huge fine," Natalia had whispered to me before he was within earshot. 

"So you were in the house..." he began. 

"Yes" Natalia replied.

"And the fire started..."

"Yes"

"And by the time you came out it was too big." 

"Yes, exactly." 

"My, how I seem to know everything!"

"You're a smart man." 

"You'll need to come into the office in the next week to fill out some paperwork."

"Of course."

He left, and a few minutes later called back to say everything was fine and taken care of. There was no need to come to the office. And to have a nice day. 

Natalia laughed. 

"They know me. I used to translate for them."

"Thus, everything is okay?" I asked, smiling.

"Thus everything is okay," she replied, smiling back. I laughed. 

"I think the second man came round just to see an American. There was no need for that paperwork," she said. We laughed some more and finished the sausage. Gathering up our things, and stuffing the cat back into the tote, we drove home. And that was how we almost burned down the dacha.