A year ago, the Reshetnyevs bought a country house. Pavel had been itching to get a dacha ever since he turned fifty. Besides, the memories of his village childhood—of his parents’ home and garden—kept coming back.
The dacha was modest but well-maintained. They painted the wooden house, patched up the fence, and replaced the gate.
There was just enough space for potatoes and a bit of other vegetables, but the garden wasn’t impressive at all: there were few trees, and those that stood were old; there wasn’t a single shrub in sight—except for a small raspberry patch.
“Don’t worry, dear, we’ll get it sorted in time,” Pavel said as he got to work, having a burning desire to transform the place.
Natalia busied herself moving between the garden beds, agreeing with her husband.
On one hand, the neighbors were good people—even though they rarely came over, they kept an eye on the dacha. On the other hand, the property was in neglect. The fence had tilted, and the grass had overgrown.
It was this very grass that had been pestering the Reshetnyevs all summer.
“Pasha, this is unacceptable—the grass is creeping into our garden. Before you know it, it’ll ‘take over’ the whole plot.”
Pavel seized a spade and attacked the weeds with fury. But the grass always found a loophole and “wove” its way through the cracks as if on purpose.
“Look, the pear trees there are in good shape,” Pavel observed, glancing at the overgrown neighbor’s garden.
“Check out how plentiful their apricot tree is,” Natalia pointed to a tree that promised a bountiful harvest. In fact, some of its branches even drooped over the fence onto the Reshetnyevs’ plot.
“If only those owners would show up once,” Pavel remarked regretfully. “Maybe they’d even collect the harvest.”
Earlier in the spring, Pavel hadn’t resisted and, after shifting the hose, watered the neighbor’s trees—it was a pity, they might wither in the heat.
And now, there was the grass, which seemed unstoppable.
“Really, they could have mowed the grass at least once during the summer,” Natalia fumed.
The next time they arrived at the dacha, the Reshetnyevs were astonished to see an abundance of apricots. In Siberia, it wasn’t unusual for many to grow apricots, but to have them at an abandoned dacha…
“No, I’m going to mow their grass,” Pavel declared. “I can’t stand to see our dacha choked by weeds.”
“Pasha, look,” Natalia said, pointing to the drooping branches of the apricot tree, “they’re hanging right over into our garden.”
Pavel fetched a small ladder. “Let’s at least collect these fruits before they disappear—after all, no one’s ever shown up at this dacha all this time.”
“Oh, but it’s not ours,” Natalia hesitated.
“It’ll all go to waste anyway,” he replied, and he began picking the ripe fruits first.
“Then maybe we can save the raspberries for the grandchildren,” his wife suggested, “since you’re busy mowing the grass, let’s call it a fair trade.”
“It looks like everything can be salvaged here. No one really needs this dacha—it’s stuck to our plot like a Siberian orphan, with no one bothering about it.”
At work, during a spare moment, Pavel paused to chat with some of his colleagues. The driver-expeditors gathered in a circle to exchange their bits of life wisdom.
“Some kind of bitch started coming to my dacha; she’s shaken the tree twice already,” said Nikolay Gavrilov, who was nearing retirement.
Pavel broke into a sweat at Nikolay’s words, suddenly hit by a wave of heat, remembering that just the other day he and his wife had collected apricots—and that the pear tree was also promising a good harvest.
“Where is your dacha?” Pavel ventured, almost dreading the answer.
“Down at the lowlands, where the Samoslovskoe Garden Association is,” replied Nikolay.
“Ah, I see,” Pavel exhaled. “And we’re up on the hill.”
“Well, then your trees ripen sooner,” Nikolay said knowingly. “Ours come later, and yet—they shamelessly steal away. They’ve already dug up several bushes of potatoes; you might as well set a trap for them.”
“About the trap—that’s dangerous,” the men cautioned. “They might actually plant them.”
“So, stealing is allowed then?” Nikolay Petrovich objected.
Pavel arrived home in a state of turmoil, his mind replaying the conversation. And although the dacha with the apricot tree wasn’t really his partner’s, his conscience still bothered him.
Of course, in his childhood they used to run around in other people’s gardens—that was just youthful mischief. And it happened a couple of times.
But here it was a neighbor’s dacha from which they had picked some of the apricots. And now they were eyeing the pear tree as well.
“No, Pavel,” his wife insisted, “you can plant new saplings—they’ll grow over time. But that neighbor’s apricot… it’s a pity to let it go to waste.”
“No one will come by anyway,” Natalia reassured him. “Since they haven’t shown up all year, they won’t now.”
“But I feel as if I’ve stolen something,” Pavel worried.
“Do you want me to throw that apricot tree out?” his wife asked cautiously. “Though, I already gave half of them to the kids,” she added in a defensive tone.
“Let it be, now.”
In short, the Reshetnyevs spent the entire summer struggling with someone else’s dacha, trying to clear away the grass. They kept an eye on the pear tree, waiting for the rightful owners to appear. And when the fruits finally fell to the ground, Natalia went and gathered a few to fill her apron.
In the fall, after tidying up their own dacha and leaving it in perfect order, they looked over at the neighbor’s property. It seemed as though even the fence was looking forlorn, as if it were silently begging for its sagging boards to be propped up. Next to the gate lay a pile of trash; apparently, there had been a temporary structure that had been dismantled, leaving behind a mess—rotten boards, glass, some rags… yet even among the debris, late autumn flowers tried to break through.
In the winter, reminiscing about the summer days, Pavel missed the dacha.
And when spring arrived, as soon as the first hints of green grass appeared, they went to inspect the property.
“I wonder if the owners will show up this year?” Natalia asked, referring to the abandoned dacha.
Pavel sighed regretfully. “The land and trees are such a waste.”
When it was time to plow the gardens, Pavel called an ad, hired a man, and showed him the work front.
And all the while, he kept glancing at the neighbor’s garden. They cleared the tall grass to prevent it from spreading, and now they planned to plow that small patch of land…
“Listen, friend, why don’t we also plow the neighbor’s plot? I’ll pay,” Pavel suggested.
“What are you saying, Pasha?” Natalia asked. “It’s someone else’s dacha.”
“But I can’t stand looking at that overgrown field,” he replied.
“So, are we going to keep tending someone else’s dacha?” his wife countered.
“Wait a minute, after lunch we’re not going home—we’re heading to the dacha association to find out who owns this place. I’ve had it with these weeds, and the garden is a pity…”
At the dacha association, a woman adjusted her glasses and flipped through a filled-out journal. “So you’re saying the address is Berezovaya, 45?”
“That’s right,” Natalia confirmed. “Even if they just clean up the grass and harvest the crop, it’s such a shame—what a beautiful garden. It would be ruined without proper care.”
“That’s all over,” the woman said. “The owners refused it; now the land belongs to the municipality.”
“So, is it ownerless?” Pavel asked.
“It appears so. The owners were elderly and have passed away. Their closest relative—a nephew—immediately declined, saying he doesn’t have time,” the woman explained while glancing at the Reshetnyevs. “Are you interested?”
“What exactly are we taking over—the dacha?”
“Well, yes. You can purchase it, it won’t cost much. And all the documents are in order.”
“Well, Natasha, shall we take the plot, since it’s all by the book?”
“Will we manage it?”
“We’ll set it up, hand it down to the kids, and they can bring their own children.”
“Wasn’t a fuss at all—like buying a piglet,” Natalia said with a laugh when they arrived at the dacha.
“Consider it as if we’ve adopted the dacha; it’s ours now,” Pavel declared.
“Alright, then. I’ll take out the trash right now—fortunately, we have a trailer—and I’ll clear out the remaining weeds, free up the garden, and then replace the fence.”
That summer, Pavel admired the canopies of trees and the flowers his wife had planted. The land on the former neighbor’s dacha seemed to have come alive—it stretched toward the sun and greedily soaked up the heavy raindrops.
“Look at that, our little orphan has perked up,” Pavel rejoiced.
On a day off, the children came: his daughter Lena, son-in-law Oleg, and the grandchildren. The older kids, Misha and Sasha, rushed to the car, while little Anya froze by the flower bed, where her grandfather Pasha snapped a photo.
“I like it here,” said son-in-law Oleg as he uncoiled the hose to water the potatoes. “Maybe we can plant some gooseberries too,” he added.
“Maybe next year,” Pavel replied. “We can even leave a small lawn for the kids to play on.”
“I’ll buy them a pool,” promised Oleg. Then he looked at the fence. “So, shall we get to work? Replace the fence?”
“Absolutely,” agreed Pavel. “The dacha is now ours. It’s as if it chose us—it’s brightened up… and there’ll be plenty of raspberries this year.”
