Category — Russia

Leningrad during the Seige. Vegetable gardens near the gates of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, c. 1943. Photo by Boris Kudoyarov.

The contribution of urban agriculture to human sustainable development is potentially important.

By Louiza Mansourovna Boukharaeva
Professor of Philosophy at Kazan Technical University (Russia)
and
Marcel Marloie
Researcher in rural economy and sociology in the National Institute of Agronomic Researches (France)
Unknown date

Excerpt:

In the Russian case where the State has always been controlling food distribution channels, Family Urban Agriculture (FUA), as with peasant plots in rural areas, served a food contribution function, including a way to help the survival of families in case of serious crises. The Soviet period caused a specific evolution to the long history of FUA. The social destruction and very rapid urbanization of the 1920’s and 30’s happened with the destruction of the older forms of urban agriculture.

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Boris Pasternak digging a potato patch at his dacha in Peredelkino, near Moscow, in the summer of 1958. From Sharashkin thesis, via LIFE magazine.

The Earth needs our help

By Leonid Sharashkin
PhD thesis
University of Missouri–Columbia
May, 2008
274 pages
(Exciting find! So much to read in this paper. Mike)
Excerpts:

Russia has 18.8 million acres of family gardens, which produce US$14 billion worth of products per year, equivalent to over 50% of Russia’s agricultural output, or 2.3% of the country’s GDP (Rosstat 2007b). The United States, on the other hand, have 27.6 million acres of lawn, which produce a US$30 billion per year lawn care industry (Bormann, Balmori, and Geballe 2001).

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Cultivate vegetables!

A. Kuznetsova, A. Magitson, ca. 1930
Publisher: AChR, Moscow

Workers are encouraged to cultivate vegetables near factories. On the poster, a realistic still life is combined with a modern constructivist background. It is issued by the publishing company of AChR, the Association of Revolutionary Artists. This organization is the main promotor of Socialist Realism and develops a stranglehold on the visual arts.
From the International Institute of Social History.

Photograph shows Czar Nicholas II and family gardening at Alexander Palace during internment at Tsarskoe-Selo, 1917.

Larger photo here.