The Calvert Journal, an award-winning online magazine dedicated to exploring the culture and creativity of the New East: eastern Europe, the Balkans, Russia and Central Asia, has published one of the winning essays from the Notting Hill Editions 2017 Essay Prize by Dasha Shkurpela.

Most of us will know very little about ‘commonplace dachas’ in Russia until we read ‘Dacha’ by Dasha Shkurpela. With its uncertain meandering through the meanings of temporary and permanent summerhouses in the Russian countryside – its questioning and hesitating – this essay throws up strange and surprising links of trains of thought.