The Family Expected a Full Harvest Again, but Vera Was Done Breaking Her Back and Simply Rented Out the Dacha
“You should plant the tomato seedlings earlier this year. Last time they turned out watery. And make sure you grow more sweet peppers too—Pasha loves lecho, you know that. Oh, and I read somewhere that eggplants are fashionable to grow now, so you should give them their own bed as well.”
The woman froze with a wet plate still in her hands, feeling a cold wave of irritation run down her spine. Slowly, she turned off the tap, dried her hands on a kitchen towel, and faced her sister-in-law, who was sitting at her dining table as if she were the lady of the house.
Tamara, her husband’s sister, was leisurely drinking tea with cherry preserves, carefully scooping the berries from a glass dish with a silver spoon. She wore an elegant silk robe, and her fresh manicure gleamed beneath the kitchen light. In the next room, the television was blaring—Vera’s husband, Nikolai, and Tamara’s husband, Pavel, were loudly discussing some sports game.
Vera was fifty-five years old, and for the last twenty years she had spent every spring, summer, and autumn bent nearly double over her six-hundred-square-meter garden plot. The dacha had been given to her by her parents many years earlier, when they decided to leave country life behind and move permanently into a warm, comfortable apartment in the city. The property was a good one: tidy, well-kept, with a solid brick cottage, a spacious veranda, and rich, fertile soil.
At first, Vera had worked the garden because she genuinely enjoyed it. She loved planting herbs, picking strawberries, and growing a small supply of her own clean, natural vegetables. But over the years, things had changed—quietly at first, but completely. Her husband’s relatives had gradually made it a habit to treat Vera’s harvest as if it belonged to them.
“Tamara, eggplants are very demanding,” Vera replied, trying to keep her voice calm. “They need a greenhouse and special care. My back is still hurting from last fall. I could barely dig up the potatoes.”
“Oh, come on, what back? None of us are getting any younger,” her sister-in-law said dismissively, finishing her tea. “But at least it’s homegrown, no chemicals! Have you seen the prices in the stores? It’s outrageous. And it would be a sin to let good land go to waste. Kolya says he truly rests his soul at the dacha.”
Kolya rests his soul there, and I pay for it with my body, Vera thought bitterly, though she said nothing aloud.
Nikolai’s contribution to the dacha barely amounted to anything. In spring, he would run the motor cultivator over a couple of beds, and then he would spend the rest of the summer grilling kebabs on weekends. Tamara and her husband were even worse. They only ever came when everything was already done. They would arrive around lunchtime on Saturday, bringing meat and a couple of bottles of beer, turn the music up loud, sunbathe in deck chairs, and leave that evening with the trunk of their expensive SUV loaded with boxes of cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, and berries.
Meanwhile, Vera spent every weekend working without straightening her back. Weeding, watering, tying up plants, fighting pests, watering again. The sun scorched mercilessly overhead, and despite wearing gloves, her hands had grown coarse and stained dark from the soil. Then came canning season. Vera sterilized jars, boiled marinades, made compotes, and worked in the stifling heat of her little kitchen until she could barely breathe. And the most insulting part was that in winter Tamara would simply call and say, “Verочка, we’ll take ten jars of pickles and five jars of lecho. Have them ready—Pasha will stop by tonight.”
They didn’t even return the empty jars clean.
That evening, after seeing the relatives off, Vera couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. She lay in the dark, listening to Nikolai’s even breathing, thinking that March was just around the corner. Which meant the windowsills would once again turn into little plantations of seedlings. Once again there would be dirt everywhere, plastic cups, grow lights, and heavy boxes to haul into the car. And for what? So Tamara could wrinkle her nose and complain about watery tomatoes?
The next day, Vera’s daughter Dasha stopped by. She lived on her own, worked as an economist for a large company, and had always been practical by nature. Dasha brought her mother a beautiful cake and a package of expensive loose-leaf tea. They sat in the kitchen, and Vera, unable to hold it in any longer, began telling her about her worries over the coming dacha season.
“Mom, I honestly don’t understand you,” her daughter said bluntly after hearing the scattered story about eggplants and lecho for Uncle Pasha. “Why are you doing this? Do you owe anyone anything?”
“But how can I not, Dasha?” Vera sighed. “The land is there. The family expects it. Aunt Toma made a whole list yesterday of what needs to be planted. Your father will be upset if I say I’m not planting anything. He loves being out in nature.”
“Dad loves eating шашлык and lying in a hammock,” Dasha shot back. “And Aunt Toma loves having a free supermarket. Mom, wake up. This is your dacha. Legally it belongs only to you—it was gifted to you, which means even in a divorce it wouldn’t be divided. You are the sole owner. You’re fifty-five, your blood pressure goes up and down, your joints hurt. Why should you work like a laborer for healthy grown men and an entitled sister-in-law?”
“And what do you suggest?” Vera asked. “Just abandon the place? Let weeds take over? The neighbors will laugh.”
“Not abandon it,” Dasha said, a sharp, businesslike spark appearing in her eyes. “Rent it out.”
Vera nearly choked on her tea.
“Rent it out? To whom?”
“To people, Mom. Ordinary people who want to spend the summer in a house where their children can run barefoot on the grass. People rent out apartments all the time—why not a dacha? The place is wonderful, the house is solid, there’s running water, there’s a bathhouse, and it’s not far from the city. Do you know how much a dacha like that can bring in for a season? With that money, you could buy fresh vegetables at the farmers’ market all summer—and still have enough left for a nice health retreat.”
For a long time Vera brushed the idea aside. It seemed impossible to her. How could she let strangers into the house her parents had loved? What would Nikolai say? What kind of scandal would Tamara create?
But the weeks passed, and spring drew closer. Nikolai started mentioning more often that it was time to go buy fertilizer at the garden center. Tamara called to remind Vera not to forget seeds for some special variety of basil. And with every conversation, the cup of Vera’s patience filled a little more.
The final straw came in early April. Vera came home from work exhausted—it was the end of the quarter, and reports had drained every last nerve. In the hallway she nearly tripped over two enormous bags of soil for seedlings that Nikolai had dumped right in the middle of the passage, dirtying the pale rug.
“Kolya, why couldn’t you at least put them on the balcony?” she asked tiredly, taking off her boots.
“Oh, stop grumbling, just step over them,” came his voice from the other room. “I also bought peat pots. You’ll start sowing tomorrow. Tomka called—she wants you to grow her about fifty petunia seedlings for her balcony. So don’t drag your feet.”
Vera looked at the dirty bags. At the stained rug. She remembered the tone Tamara had used when ordering those petunias. And suddenly she realized that she simply couldn’t do it anymore. She physically could not pick up soil and seeds and start another endless season of serving everyone else’s needs.
The very next day, taking a day off from work, she called Dasha.
They acted quickly and quietly. That weekend, while Nikolai was away fishing with friends, Vera and her daughter went to the dacha. They spent two full days there. They washed the windows, beat out the rugs, and put the little house and veranda in perfect order. Dasha took bright, attractive photos of the cozy rooms, the green lawn—which Vera had wisely planted last year in place of a couple of vegetable beds—the blossoming apple trees, and the bathhouse.
That very evening, the listing went up on a major real estate website. Dasha set the price high, explaining that the house was well maintained and had every convenience.
The calls began the very next day. Hiding out on the enclosed balcony so her husband wouldn’t hear, Vera negotiated with potential renters. She was nervous, her palms were sweating, but she had no intention of backing down. At last, the ideal tenants appeared: a young Moscow family working remotely. The husband was a programmer, the wife a designer, and they had two small children close in age. They didn’t need garden beds—they were looking for peace, clean air, and good internet, which Vera had installed at the dacha a couple of years earlier.
They arranged to meet at the property. The couple turned out to be lovely. They were delighted by the cleanliness, the bathhouse, and the large veranda.
“Vera Ivanovna, we should be upfront—we’re not going to do any gardening,” the husband, Ilya, said honestly. “At most we might plant some herbs for grilling. But I’ll mow the lawn myself, if that’s all right. You do have a mower, don’t you?”
“I do, Ilya, yes,” Vera said with a smile, feeling a massive weight slide off her shoulders. “You don’t need to plant a thing. Just relax and keep the place tidy.”
They signed a lease for five months, from May through September. Ilya transferred the first month’s rent to Vera’s bank card, along with a security deposit equal to another month’s payment. When Vera’s phone chimed to confirm the transfer, she could hardly believe what she was seeing. It was the equivalent of two months of her salary.
When she came home, she hid the lease agreement in a folder with her personal papers. She said nothing to her husband. She decided she would explain everything when the time came.
That year the May holidays were unusually warm. Nature had fully awakened, and the trees were covered in tender green haze. Nikolai had been bustling around since Thursday.
“All right, Ver, I’ve marinated the meat, bought charcoal. We’re leaving in the morning. Toma and Pasha will drive straight there—they’re bringing their grill rack. Did you get the shovels ready? We should dig the beds for greens while the soil is still damp.”
Vera calmly finished her tea, washed her cup, and turned to him.
“I’m not going tomorrow, Kolya,” she said evenly. “And I wouldn’t advise you to go either.”
Nikolai stared at her in confusion.
“What do you mean, you’re not going? Then who’s going to plant everything? We already agreed. Pasha’s already stocked up on beer, we planned a barbecue. Are you sick or something?”
“No, I feel perfectly fine,” Vera replied in a steady voice. “I rented out the dacha. People are living there now. The contract is signed through the end of September.”
A ringing silence filled the kitchen. Nikolai blinked several times, trying to process what he had just heard.
“You rented it out? To who? What people? What are you even talking about, Vera? Is this some kind of joke?”
“It’s not a joke. I let tenants move in. A nice family with children. They’ve already moved in, paid the first month, and left a deposit. So there will be no barbecues and no garden beds this year.”
Red blotches spread across Nikolai’s face. He tried to raise his voice, waving his hands and insisting that she had no right to make such a decision without telling him. Vera calmly pulled a copy of the lease and an official ownership extract from her folder, proving that the property belonged solely to her.
“Listen to me carefully,” she said firmly, looking him straight in the eyes. “For twenty years I have broken my back on that land. I asked you for help, I asked you to hire someone, I asked your relatives to at least wash the jars. Nobody cared. You all came there to rest and stuff yourselves. My health is gone. The dacha is mine by law, and I used it the way I saw fit. Over these five months I’ll make enough money for us to have a luxurious vacation by the sea during velvet season. If that doesn’t suit you, then you’re welcome to go to your sister’s place and grill kebabs in her yard.”
Nikolai nearly choked with outrage. He grabbed his phone and stormed out to the balcony. Vera could hear him pacing over the tiles and angrily calling someone.
Saturday morning began with a storm of phone calls. Tamara called at least ten times, but Vera simply silenced the phone and calmly went about her day. For the first time in years, she wasn’t rushing to catch the train, hauling heavy grocery bags, or thinking about which strawberry patch needed weeding. She watered her houseplants, listened to pleasant music, and planned a trip to the hairdresser.
Around noon, her sister-in-law’s number flashed again on the screen, and this time Vera decided to answer.
“Vera! What is going on?!” Tamara shrieked. Vera could hear wind and passing cars in the background. Apparently they were standing near the dacha gate. “We came here and there’s a strange car parked outside! Some children are running across our lawn! Some bearded man came out and said they rented the house! Have you completely lost your mind in your old age?”
“Hello, Toma,” Vera said gently. “And a good day to you too. Yes, that’s right. The bearded man’s name is Ilya, and he’s my tenant. The dacha has been rented out.”
“What right did you have to let strangers into our dacha?! We grew up here! Kolya grew up here! This is a family nest!”
“The family nest, Toma, was sold by your parents many years ago,” Vera replied calmly. “This one is my dacha, the one I inherited from my mother and father. And I’m the one who ruined my back working on it.”
“What about us?! We already made plans! Pasha brought meat! And what about vegetables? Where are we supposed to get potatoes and cucumbers in the fall? You’ve decided to leave us with nothing?”
“At the supermarket, Toma. Or at the market. There’s a wide selection there these days. I hear eggplants are even on sale.”
“You… you’re just a shameless egoist!” Tamara screamed. “We treated you like family, and this is how you repay us? I’ll never set foot in your house again!”
“That is entirely your choice,” Vera replied peacefully. “Enjoy your holiday.”
She ended the call and exhaled with relief. The scandal she had dreaded turned out not to be frightening at all. In fact, it didn’t affect her in the slightest. The guilt that had tried to raise its head over the last few weeks vanished completely.
Nikolai came home that evening dark-faced, angry, and smelling of beer. Apparently the ruined weekend had been “celebrated” somewhere in a garage with friends. He slammed the door, went into the kitchen, banged dishes around for a long time, and then sat in front of the television, pointedly ignoring his wife.
Vera did not press him. She understood that he needed time to adjust to this new reality—a reality in which his comfortable, compliant wife had suddenly shown backbone and drawn a line.
The weeks passed. Ilya turned out to be the perfect tenant. He transferred the rent on time without fail and sometimes sent Vera photos in messenger: a neat yard, happy children playing on the lawn. A couple of times he even asked for permission to repaint the fence from the street side, simply because, as he put it, “I felt like doing something with my hands outdoors.” Naturally, Vera agreed.
Nikolai sulked for about a month. On weekends he wandered aimlessly around the apartment, not knowing what to do with himself. The familiar rhythm of life had been broken. Tamara called him several times, complaining about prices at the market and demanding that he somehow deal with “that crazy woman,” but though Nikolai was angry with his wife, he understood perfectly well that legally he had no power, and he didn’t want to turn the conflict into a total war.
The turning point came in early July. Nikolai’s vacation was approaching. Normally he would have spent it at the dacha, alternating between lounging in a hammock and taking occasional walks into the woods for mushrooms while Vera bustled around the kitchen with preserves. This time, after dinner, Vera laid a glossy brochure and a printout of her bank statement on the table in front of him.
“Kolya, take a look,” she said. “I found a wonderful health resort in Kislovodsk. They have a spine treatment program for me and cardiovascular therapy for you. Three meals a day, a pool, mountain excursions. The money from renting out the dacha fully covers three weeks there plus plane tickets.”
Nikolai picked up the brochure in disbelief. He looked at the glossy photos of mountain scenery, cozy rooms, and sparkling dining halls. Then he glanced at the bank statement, where an impressive amount was clearly listed.
“All this… came from renting out the dacha?” he asked quietly.
“Yes. And there will still be money left for spending. We don’t need to buy seeds, manure, pay insane water bills for irrigation, or spend money on gas every weekend. We don’t need to feed a whole crowd of relatives. We can simply relax. Like normal people.”
For a long time, her husband sat in silence, studying the papers. Then he sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead.
“All right,” he said at last. “Go ahead and book your resort. Just don’t tell Tomka where we’re going, or she and Pasha will show up and try to vacation on our dime.”
Vera allowed herself the faintest smile. It was a victory.
The summer turned out beautifully. They went to Kislovodsk, where for the first time in years Vera felt like a woman rather than a workhorse. She had massages, drank mineral water, walked along the health trails, and simply enjoyed the fact that someone else was cooking for her. At first Nikolai grumbled that he missed barbecue, but he quickly adapted to the peaceful resort routine, made friends with other vacationers, and even began doing morning exercises.
By autumn, when harvest season would normally begin, Vera’s phone stayed silent. Tamara, apparently having realized that the free food source had been shut down for good, no longer called. Dasha confided that Aunt Toma had been complaining to all the relatives about Vera’s greed and whining that she had been forced to spend half her salary on greenhouse tomatoes at the market just to make lecho. Vera listened with complete indifference. Other people’s problems were no longer hers.
At the end of September, the tenants moved out. Ilya and Marina left the house spotless, the fence really had been neatly repainted, and in the refrigerator they left a box of fine chocolates and a bottle of wine as a thank-you.
“Vera Ivanovna, if you decide to rent it out again next year, we want to be first in line,” Ilya said as he handed over the keys. “We absolutely loved staying here.”
“Agreed, Ilya. I’ll keep you in mind,” Vera replied.
She watched their car disappear, closed the gate, and sat down on the porch of her house. Golden autumn had settled all around. The air was crisp and clear. Vera looked out over her plot. The earth was resting. And Vera was resting too.
At that moment she understood the most important truth of all: sometimes, in order to save yourself, you simply have to stop being convenient for everyone else.
Nikolai arrived to pick her up and walked over to the porch. He looked around and grunted thoughtfully.
“Those people really took good care of the place. They even mowed the grass before leaving. You know, Ver… if we rent it to them again next year for a little more, maybe we could go to Turkey in August. I’ve never been.”
Vera laughed, looking at her husband, who had finally discovered the beauty of passive income.
“We’ll go, Kolya,” she said. “Absolutely.”
She stood up, locked the house, and walked to the car with a confident step, knowing with complete certainty that she would never return to the vegetable beds again.