Kazan — summer 2012

Now I have to tell you about the garden here. Russians love their gardens. In the summertime, if a family has a dacha, they head out of town and plant as much as they possibly to prepare for winter. Danila's family actually has a private home just outside of Kazan, and they have enough land to do some serious gardening. And what do they grow? First off, they grow flowers. Russians love flowers! I keep saying ‘Russians,’ but most of what I'm saying here applies to the Tatars I know as well.

Danila's mom goes by Flyura, which I take to be the Russified form of fleur, which is French for ‘flower.’ Here are Flyura's flowers.

But really this is primarily a food garden. She grows strawberries, blueberries and currants, and then makes varenye out of them, a kind of syrupy jam (very tasty). Here is what a currant bush looks like.

What is a garden without sweet Russian cucumbers? Straight from the garden they are crunchy as an apple and have no bitter taste.

Here are the carrots.

And let's not forget the green house for starting delicate tomatos early.

She also grows a couple types of squash.

And now a few general shots.

And then I found the most curious plant that just grows wild around here. She says that the plant produces three-millimeter seeds that are very tasty.

She told me the leaves have a nice smell. I detected nothing. Perhaps if we dried them, rolled them as a cigarette and smoked them, then they would have a fairly distinct odor?