Eco community enjoys organic life outside Moscow

RT.com, 29 March, 2012

Kovcheg eco village in Kaluga region (image from http://www.eco-kovcheg.ru)

While big cities like Moscow are giant magnets, attracting people from all over Russia, there are many who intentionally move out of town in pursuit of nature and harmony.

In the Kovcheg (“Ark”) eco-village, where more than 80 families share the land, little ones live with their parents in homes made of local wood.

Eco Village Kovcheg

Eating organic, locally grown foods and enjoying the heat of local fuel, they live at a much slower pace than children in the city.

“For me, moving here wasn't a shock or a serious change,” Natalia Strelnikova, psychologist and eco-village resident, told RT. “I knew how great it would be for our three children, and I was happy to move out of Moscow. In fact, I was never too excited about my life in the big city.”

Located in the Kaluga region, the settlement lies near what was once a bustling village 300 years ago, but is now a ghost town. Houses there are built from local logs using the local woodshop.

“We log ill trees and take them away,” biologist and village co-founder Fedor Lazutin told RT. 

“The bushes and small trees keep growing, so the forest can recover. Many trees don’t adapt well to the increasingly hot summers. So we are logging more and more diseased trees to save the forest.”

Local trees make the houses, local animals and garden plots make the food, and local bees make the honey. The economy is partly supported by crafts, but most people commute into the city one or two days a month to make what they need to support themselves.

“It was a gradual change,” Alexey Kanischev, a computer programmer and resident told RT. 
“We first moved from Moscow to Karelia to live in a village for two years. Then we came here. 
We made a lot of drafts trying to draw a plan of this house. Then we asked our neighbors for feedback and got our final draft of the house we are now sitting in with you. It's a special old Finnish recipe of wood paint.”

Green rules for eco villagers

The village’s residents have to be careful about what they build. The rules state that inhabitants are not allowed to mar the landscape with anything other than greenery or homes. They even invested their money to sink the electricity lines underground just to keep things natural.

The local common house is where you can find community culture, whether it is language or music classes. Each inhabitant must give back with teaching or offering their professional skills in some way.

When Andrey Gabov is not chopping wood for his family or enjoying the outdoors, he is giving lessons on his formidable local balalaika.

“I got here so to say following my soul,” Gabov told RT. “I wanted my son to grow up in a village, to run on the grass and swim in the river, surrounded by nature. To earn money I go to Moscow once a week, perform there, and I’ve got all I need.”

As for Natalia Strelnikova, she and her husband are planning for a few more additions to their family in the coming years – they claim they have got all they need under one roof, made by themselves.

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