SAD. A Documentary Project Dedicated to the Russian Dacha
During 300 years of their history the Russian summer residence places (dachas) developed under the influence of the cultural and society changes but remained more conservative than the city. As a result the unique visuality and certain traditions were formed. The aim of the current project was to investigate the Russian dacha and to keep the traditions and the inheritage.
SAD (The Community of the Authors’ Dachas) (the abbreviation of the project is also an homonym of the word ‘garden’) is the project about the Russian summer residence places. Its aim is to keep the inheritage and to revive the ‘dacha’s’ traditions. So we study the past of the dachas and describe how they can look like today.
Currently the summer residence culture is almost forgotten. The modern dachas became either the cottages for constant residence or the land plots with garden beds. The aims of the project are: • To determine the phenomenon of the ‘dacha’, to study its history and to record the special characteristics; • To update this phenomenon, to make it not an ‘archaic’, but a ‘traditional’ one and at the same time ‘modern’ and close for a modern individual.
The project also included the identity, web-site design, social networks design, the merch.
The web-site of the project publishes the articles on the past and present of the Russian dacha and sells the brand merch.
Since the main task of the project is the dissemination of knowledge on the history, traditions and architecture of the Russian dachas the social networks become an important communication channel.
