Dacha Project

The Dacha Project, founded in 2008, is a do-it-yourself, egalitarian and educational homestead. We are comprised of six friends and an extensive circle of supporters and community members. Situated on 16 acres in Finger Lakes region of New York, we have built an off-the-grid, earth-bermed, solar-passive house, powered by active solar and a diesel generator converted to run on waste vegetable oil. (We connected to the grid on 2014 but still use solar power) In addition, we built, or rather sculpted, a straw-bale cottage, planted a fruit and nut tree orchard, and are ever-expanding our gardens. We are almost entirely owner built, with innovative designs for our energy, heating, water, waste and agriculture systems.

We often invite the community in for tours, events and workshops. In the future we plan to expand our educational programming and more official artist/writing residencies, as well as internships and apprenticeships. Although, we are not looking for more permanent members at this time, any interested people are welcome to visit, to write us, to purpose projects, or to simply explore our website or keep up with us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dacha-Project/72957687386?ref=hl).

Our overall aim is to live in conjunction with the land that supports us, to present alternatives to wasteful practices, and to have ample time to follow various individual pursuits, be they micro-businesses, art, or anything else. Most significantly we work to facilitate and inspire community building here locally and everywhere, because we are continually awed by the power and fun of collaboration.