End of summer

In the 30s of the last century, dachas near Moscow (usually one-story wooden houses, sometimes with a mezzanine) were built primarily for the purpose of taking children “out into nature,” i.e., as they would say today, for recreational purposes. So my parents, who belonged to the middle-income Moscow intelligentsia, 75 years ago built a purely summer one-story wooden house, where until 1941 the four of us lived with my nanny.

Forest fires several tens of kilometers away from us, in the Shatura region, also happened then; I remember my childhood fears, when at dusk I looked into the dark corners of my nursery, then into my parents’ room: what if it was already on fire?.. It seems to me that I had no other childhood fears.

Initially, our landscape was called “dead cover pine forest.” To cut down a tree, even a rotten one, you had to call someone from the forestry department to make a notch on the tree. Otherwise, the owner faced a considerable fine.

After the war, my father planted linden trees, maples and jasmines here, I planted more jasmines and bird cherry trees, and as a result, such undergrowth appeared that it had to be thinned out by calling in workers from the forestry department. Over time, the forestry disappeared somewhere, so I don’t even know if anyone monitored the condition of the forest in the village as a whole. Nevertheless, mostly the old pine forest with the usual deciduous undergrowth for the Moscow region, in places quite thick, has been preserved here.

Although gradually there were more and more new houses suitable for living all year round, and, accordingly, new owners and new cars, the total amount of greenery did not seem to decrease, and if it decreased, it was not much and for reasons beyond the control of the residents. The forest, as we know, ages; old trees are more susceptible to diseases, etc. Woodpeckers, nuthatches and tits, of course, come in handy, but...

This year, at the end of June, a hurricane knocked down four centuries-old pines, which, when they fell, knocked down two large sycamore maples and a large linden tree, trees planted by my father immediately after the war. And a lot of smaller things...

Two huge butts still lie near the two-story new house built by my nephew on our own site: it is unclear who can help cut them and take them away - our expensive, amateur equipment is too weak for this.

I came here in early July, when the Moscow apartment was still being ventilated, although it had been hot for a long time. Our site was unrecognizable. Wild perennials simply burned; the alder, bird cherry and rowan trees turned red and became considerably bare; the linden trees shed their leaves; the fieldfare, euonymus and viburnum had dried up, everything was covered with dry pine needles, branches and cones.

For the first few days, in the morning I tried to somehow remove the garbage that littered almost the entire site, which, in combination with the rusty periwinkle and dried leaves of the lilies of the valley, created the impression of complete abandonment. But then the thermometer climbed over 30, and most importantly, the smog began. My first thought was: it’s burning somewhere nearby, because our fence on the border with the neighbor’s property was drowned in smoke. The smoke thinned out only slightly in the evening.

Fortunately, none of the children (eight, six and two and a half) developed a specific allergy to smoke.

Meanwhile the heat was increasing. Luckily it was dry heat, otherwise my heart would have given out. At the same time, my old house (as they say, due to the presence of a large empty attic) heated up less than the new house, where I went to take a shower in the evenings (young people have “city” amenities). There, despite the double-height design of the large hall, it was stuffy.

After a while, the evening shower lost its meaning, because at 11 p.m. I still couldn’t open either the door or the windows—on the open terrace the thermometer showed 33.

At the end of July, my nephew loaded his family into a Patriot jeep and left for the Russian North for a week, leaving me in the care of our master Yura. And then, despite the seeming hopelessness of belated efforts to resurrect everything that had dried up, we turned on all the available waterers around the clock, so that the air gradually became partially humidified. Contrary to what would seem to be common sense, Yura sowed expired lawn seeds found in the barn in the most rusty place - next to the dead maples - and they not only sprouted, but the bright green grass, although with bald spots, now looks pretty good.

After the cold rains, various ground covers came to life - periwinkle, tenacious, and even severely beaten wild phlox bloomed. Miraculously, the large rowan tree under my window survived and is covered with clusters of orange berries. By evening, however, there was a strong smell of smoke again. Where from this time?..