Chaumont-sur-Loire Festival

Le Jardin Comestible or The Edible Garden is a nostalgic memory of the tiny Soviet dacha plots where, without much advanced agricultural technology, people gardened not just for pleasure but to survive through years of deficit. It has been quite some time since survival gardening was abandoned, at least around the country’s capital, and vegetable beds and greenhouses have largely been replaced by lawns and flowers. Yet we see this type of gardening making a comeback, driven both by the desire to grow one’s own organic vegetables and by a looming economic crisis.

The old dacha plots may now be overgrown and taken over by nature, but they remain a distant memory that is suddenly very alive. In our garden, five glasshouses are partially filled with vegetables and partially taken over by Russian meadow planting. All plants belong to plant communities from Nikolo-Lenivets Landart Park, 250 km south of Moscow. The matrix of blue moor grass, Molinia caerulea, is filled with flowering plants such as Verbascums, Salvias, Geraniums, Trifolium, Achillea, Agrimonia, and others. The meadow is dotted with masses of Cosmos bipinnatus — a beloved annual Soviet dacha plant.

The greenhouses are overtaken by the meadow, but in some of them you can still find raspberries, beans, or a random tomato plant. Weathered furniture pieces also date from the same period. Vintage chairs made in Czechoslovakia invite visitors to sit down and experience nature taking over.

A unique sound installation created by Russian sound artist Vladislav Sorokin also is a mix of an old dacha sounds.