Chris Stephen in Moscow reports on the place of the country house in Russian life - and politics

Russians are familiar with political scandal, but a corruption investigation into former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov has touched on the holy of holies - he is accused of stealing a dacha.

No Russian is complete without a dacha - the country house where they escape the city and return to their roots. August is peak time for enjoyment of these traditional retreats.

The land for 150km in every direction from Moscow is littered with the little wooden houses, each with its patch of garden.

Typically, a dacha is a single-storey wooden house, with a dirt track outside the front door and the forest backing on to the rear. It is this forest that makes the dacha much more than simply a place in the country: Russians have an ancient love affair with their trees.

Through history, invaders struck from all directions and, lacking natural borders or mountains, Russia's only defence was to retreat deep into the forest.

Russians have come to see these forests as their friend. Nothing is more spiritual than an afternoon spent in the speckled darkness picking mushrooms and blueberries.

The dacha also provides a vital safety valve from life in Moscow, which is twice the size of Europe's next largest city - in fact, St Petersburg - and permanently choked with pollution and traffic.

For the elite, things have moved on. Rich tycoons and government officials have dachas the size of palaces, guarded by troops with two metre walls, behind which, it is said, the sky is the limit for parties.

Ordinary Muscovites have a routine: they drive there on Friday night: Saturday is spent picking mushrooms, swimming in the river and winding up with a barbecue with shashlik - meat on skewers - and vodka. Sunday is spent sleeping off the effects of Saturday, before the all-too-soon drive back to the city.

While corruption scandals come and go, prosecutors have guaranteed the undivided attention of the ordinary folk with "Dachagate". Kasyanov, sacked last year after four years in power, has been accused of selling himself, at a super-discount rate, the government dacha he was entitled to use as prime minister.

Crony capitalism in the 1990s produced a new twist to the dacha saga. Yeltsin's state television used a helicopter to peek inside the luxury of the dacha of Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, a political rival, to show ordinary Russians, then struggling with poverty, the luxurious ways of their mayor.

The age of Putin has cemented the position of the elite: the economic boom has seen the construction of hundreds of palaces, which are dachas in name only.