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Part One: The Foundations of the Volftsun Family 35 A dacha (Russian: да ча) is a house in the countryside. It is usually occupied part of the year by its owner or rented out to urban residents as a summer retreat. Dachas are very common in Russia and are also widespread in some former republics of the Soviet Union. Anyone who occupies a dacha is called dachnik (Russian: дачник). The first dachas in Russia began to appear during the reign of Peter the Great. Initially they were small estates in the country that were given to loyal vassals by the Tzar. In archaic Russian, the word dacha means "something given." During the Age of Enlightenment, Russian aristocracts used their dachas for social and cultural gatherings, which were usually accompanied by masquerade balls and fireworks displays. The Industrial Revolution saw rapid growth of the urban population and an increasing desire of the urban residents to escape, at least temporarily, om heavily polluted cities. By the end of the 19th century, the dacha became a favorite summer retreat for the upper and middle classes of Russian society. Aer the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, most dachas were taken away om their owners without restitution. Some were converted into vacation homes for the working class, while others, usually of better quality, were distributed among the prominent functionaries of the Communist Party and the newly emerged cultural and scientific elite. All but a few dachas remained the property of the state, and the right to use them was usually revoked when a dacha occupant was dismissed or fell out of favor with the Soviet regime. The construction of new dachas was restricted until the late 1940s and required special approval om the Communist Party leadership. Due to the service of Rosa and Iosif, the Volsuns received such permission. Dacha The family didn't get any money to build a house, but they did have a place to build a dacha. Shlomo was excited about getting the land, but where was he going to get the money to build a house for his family? Aer a while, Shlomo received an illegal offer om a rich Jew. The man would give Shlomo the money to construct the house, but in exchange Shlomo would transfer the rights to half the land and half the house to the man. This transaction was against the law and if Shlomo was discovered, he would go to jail. Shlomo, unwilling to take risks that would expose his children to injury, said no. He eventually put together enough money to buy some railroad ties and built a primitive house, little more than a lean-to. The family's next challenge was to re-occupy the apartment in Moscow they had abandoned when they had been evacuated to Tashkent. All of the so-called "Jew's houses" were now occupied by non-Jews. Ida and Rosa wrote another letter to the military authorities. As a result, the Volsuns had their apartment returned. In 1945, the Volsun family celebrated the end of the war in Moscow. two children serving the Motherland; Iosif was in the army at the ont, and Rosa was working at the hospital in Tashkent aer having been in a military unit that had been surrounded by Germans. Although she and the others had escaped and had never become prisoners of war, the Soviet leaders were wary of their proximity to Germans and worried that they had become spies. They were therefore sent back to their families instead of back to immediate active duty. Rosa returned to the war with a hospital unit some time later. In their letter to Stalin, Ida and Rosa went on to explain that their father was a sick worker whose two youngest children (Inna and Manya) were starving. They were excellent students who had no room to study. Please, they asked Stalin, help the family return to Moscow. Soon aer, on a Sunday aernoon, Inna recalls that an official came to the Volsun home. He went through the apartment, leafed through the children's school books, and le. Sometime later the family received word that they had been approved to return to Moscow and their apartment there. Additionally, they regained the small plot of land that had been military district that housed Kremlin guards.

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