Marat, I will dump it here. It is in the back of my mind for a month now. Didnt do fact checking but some of you guys might know if this is correct. In my opinion just wood is the solution and KISS. H2 will not bring what everyone is expecting in some unclear future. Wood is real, now.
This comment about 2 wheel drive took me back to my youth where my dad drove a two wheel drive small car into a remote canyon “only accessible by 4 wheel drive.” The jaw dropping expressions on the old miners faces when we showed up was priceless. Yes it took us 3X the time (like hopping on one leg?).
Sorry about this off-topic reply to Tom’s old post.
Joep, I think you are basically correct. I think that hydrogen could become our energy system, if we didn’t have anything else. But in fact we do have other things, and they are much easier, cheaper… A CNG based system would be cheaper and easier though still fossil.
I think something that would use waste as a feedstock is probably the way we will do it. In New York City, Oberon Fuels has started converting garbage to DME. This is only an example. I’m sure there other ways.
And I think we will continue to use piston engines for a long time yet, we can just change their fuel. Example 20% water in diesel.
Rindert
I just found this website today. And since this applies to the future, I decided to insert a link to it here. I didn’t know that this idea had been discussed for several years on the English-speaking part of the Internet.
I’ve been thinking about this Marat. Perhaps such a basically utopian agenda could work on some scale in Russia. It’s been a mere 35 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russian people for the most part were suddenly forced to become much more self reliant because there were no other options. Prior to that I do not know what their work ethic was but for the most part anywhere big government exists people will look to it to provide as much as they can milk from it and that’s exactly what Big Government wants and is designed for. Any country in the west, especially the U.S. Canada, and at least the EU countries are peopled almost entirely by people that have no real ambition and could not sustain themselves for even a portion of a year if the gravy train screeched to a halt. One in perhaps a hundred could grow food, fix their own vehicles or do basic maintenance on their homes. No, I should make that skeptically one in a thousand. People only learn from adversity. To struggle and overcome is the sweetest reward. To make something useful from crap rejected by nearly all others is what gets me to my happy place. I know that’s the same with most of us here. We are an oasis in a desert of dullards.
Marat, wuld you belive that Megre has a lot of folowers here in Slovenia also. We got quite a few “kins domains” and the first one built is just a few km away, established by a friend of myne. I also did some carpentry there.
I read Megre. Personaly, l think most of his work is fiction but he is certainly on to something with the homestead model. It is however designed for your neck of the woods, here the geography makes it unpractical on large scale.
I do however think that 1 hectare is not enaugh to be fully self sufficiant. Firewood and hay being included.
The thing here thugh is noone takes this wery seriously. They got rather big bookreading clubs reading Megre, theoretise and dream but its mostly talk not work. And the ones that do have the homestead dont realy live there. Its just an ornament, dedicated more to art thain practicality. As with any self sufficiancy project, it requires tons of work. Work stinks like death to most people…
Beautiful house! It’s nice to hear that in other parts of the World, people are building something beautiful with thoughts of their descendants.
Many people build their Kin Estates in Settlements. For example, here is a list of Kin Estates Settlements in Russia (387 Settlements as of January 11, 2025): Список поселений, состоящих из Родовых поместий России
Here is a list of Settlements consisting of their Kin Estates outside of Russia (135 Settlements as of January 11, 2025):
Of these, in Ukraine: 73, and in Belarus: 26.
And these are just the number of registered Settlements on this website. Those who sent information about their Settlements. Only a few families live somewhere. And somewhere the bill goes to hundreds. It’s different in every Settlement.
But there are also just Kin Estates that are not included in any Settlements, and are often created on plots of land in old villages.
For example, our family did exactly that 11 years ago. Why go to a forest or an open field, collect money with other people to provide electricity, build a road, build a school, a hospital, or a store? If all this is still in the villages.
We chose a remote village. No school, no hospital, and no shops. But all this is 7 km away from us. In 2013, there were 10 residential buildings with plots of land. During this time, the owners of three houses were buried, and old grandmothers from three more houses went to their children in the cities. As a result, there were 4 four residential buildings left. But besides our first house, we managed to buy 3 more houses with plots of land in our village. In total, we have 4 plots of approximately 1 hectare each.
What is a Kin Estate? Поселения Зарубежья
I used to think that the language barrier and translation distortions were the reason why there were so few Settlements outside of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Today, thanks to what Tom Holton said, the situation has become clearer. It’s just that there aren’t many people left on Earth who have arms growing out of their shoulders, closer to their brains.
If all these actions of people are the result of Vladimir Megre’s fiction, then this is undoubtedly a wonderful fiction!!! That’s how other people would dream, especially politicians, scientists, environmentalists and others who consider it their job and who gets paid for it!
One of the significant differences between Kin Estates and homesteads is pointed out by Megre himself. Only for some reason it was not listed in the above list. The land for the Kin Estate must be provided free of charge by the state, with the right to transfer it by inheritance, but without the right to withdraw it by banks or sell it. Also, according to Vladimir Megre’s idea, products grown on the Kin Estate should not be subject to any taxes. But, of course, these two conditions are not yet met in any of the many countries. People buy land for themselves to create their Kin Estate, but the state does not consider this to be an inviolable land and the right of these people. The whole point is to adopt the necessary laws for this, the rulers themselves must be elected from among the people who already live on their land with the above ideas. And there are too few such people now.
Everything is simple about forests and meadows for hay. People build their Settlements so far away from densely populated places that they find themselves among forests and meadows and abandoned fields that no one needs, and no one cares for them except these displaced people. At least, this statement is true today for the experience of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
But in the future, this will probably be true for other countries, taking into account population reduction measures: GMOs, poisons and chemical fertilizers in fields, childfree, feminism, drugs, LGBT, pandemics, wars, artificial food additives, urban stress and much more. It’s sad, but everyone has the right to choose their own future if they know what to choose from!
At the same time, the Settlements of Kin Estates are not eco-settlements, which many associate with stoned hippies. And they are also not communes – each Kin Family Estate is aimed at self-sufficiency.
Artificial intelligence still does not understand the difference between Kin and Family, and often confuses these concepts when translating. The kin is the previous generations (not only those who are now living), the current generation, and future generations (not only those who have already been born) of the same family. However, the concept of family is usually limited to living parents and children living with them.
However, it’s also not easy for me to understand the differences between the words Kin, Ancestral, Tribal an Genus. And an online translator often uses the first two of them, at his discretion. Which of them is most suitable for what Vladimir Megre is writing about?
In accepted current day common American English; KIN would be the best name.
Why?
It derives from the base words a-liken, and akin.
Meaning of common purpose, choices, and lifestyles.
I feel more akin to many on the DOW than most all of my true direct blood family.
Who choose to be Urban city residing, working and beholden for all of their needs. This allows them more freed up time to pursue Arts, and mass entertainments.
They work yes. Some as many as 60-70 hours week. As Engineers. As Doctors and Nurses. As production workers and services providers to others.
None garden for foods. A few flowers garden.
One cousin now retired as a City Works Engineers does now do fancy hobby wood working.
Hobbies pursued year around takes Time and personal energy resources.
Living in a supplied to you Urban setting give them the time/energy to pursue their interest hobbies.
I do not see this as changing ever soon until a forced situation comes along.
Like Natural Disasters. Wars. Plagues population collapses.
Alien invasions. No joke these. Non-native Insects. Viral and bacterial spreads trashing the stability of grand scale agricultures. Then the many will starve.
Harsh, forced, social/religious/political Church/Party All-Must mandates.
ALL conditions you hope will never come to pass.
It is hope that others will see the lights of reason. Just hope.
The majority never will take a road that seems harder to travel. Take the seems easy ways.
But a few will. Associate and fellowship with these few. Let the many fritter-on as they insistent will.
Steve Unruh
I don’t think his model is meant to be entirely self-sufficient. He mentions income from the property and I would agree 1ha is probably not enough.
To me it looks like a cross of a Global Warming ‘plant more trees to save the earth’ combine with fairly low labor fruit and tree farm model to provide mainly fruits and nuts.
But then he goes on to say vegetables, and just the sheer number of trees is a really high density, and I doubt there are enough nutrients to sustain it. Then he talks about adding manure but hasn’t mentioned from where. I think they figure a single cow requires 2 acres of grazing space but it is all planted with trees.
I just don’t see it working fully either. It is like just a bunch of ‘sustainable’ ideas thrown all together that don’t quite work. If you live an hour away from this property, you may not even make or save enough to cover fuel expenses. BUT it does give you a ‘vacation’ home, that sort of covers some of the costs, and if you give up, then 2000 trees are planted and a reforesting effort which meets the global warming sustainability ideal.
Back during the Depression and into the 40’s there was quite a bit published about living well on five acres. That would be around 2 hecacres. All really well thought out and proven in practice. A goat is a far better homestead animal than a cow and a few well tended fruit trees, berry bushes and grape vines do not require that much room along the perimeter. I have two 35 foot rows of grape vines, three apple trees , two cherry trees, Two apricot trees in a fifty foot row and just that provides more than we use. I agree that for any of this to work it requires full time occupancy and more energy than all but a tiny number of people would be willing the expend but it is entirely doable.
It was like 200 trees plus 50 fruit trees plus 2000 bushes on 2.4 acres.
Goats won’t work. The land will be barren in 3 months.
The only one I have seen ‘work’ is hogs, and they do a lot of damage as well especially to the 2000 bushes.
It is supposed to be like permaculture. I just think the plant density is too high especially later when the trees start to form a canopy.
"If all these actions of people are the result of Vladimir Megre’s fiction, then this is undoubtedly a wonderful fiction!!! "
Marat, l hope you did not think l ment that in a bad way. I 100% agree with you! But l did notice that, at least here, people take it to literaly. I went on one book reading and it was my last. It was a hippie gathering with people hoping that one day, squirrels will gather food for them too and they will just meditate all day long. Completely missing the metaphora that Megre wanted to show. To try to work with nature instead of aginst it, and nature will provide. Anastasia too is a metaphora and to me it represents the pure spirit of nature. Althugh l dont think lm willing to have intercorse with it, l think thats 100% a real living thing. Thugh his experiance with this spirit is a bit strange to me 
In Megres deffence, l do agree about the 1ha plot in one aspect. After Covid there was a mass migration of people trying to achive self sufficiancy, get out of the sistem, buying land and l got 5 families like that just in the radius of a few km around me. 1 is my highschoolmate ant they just moved so l cant speak for him yet but the other 4 quickly realised that they bit more thain they can chew. 2 got real depressed and overwhelmed with just the fact that the hayfealds and orchards needs pasturing or cutting. And since they are mostly vegeterian they got no use for hay and all the work of cutting and raking goes to smoke, literaly. And they all have about 2ha of hayfealds, mountainous terrain mind you. In this aspect Megres 1ha total is good. It will not overhuelm you, but for true self sufficiancy its just not enaugh.
Its a human psyhology trap l guess and l admit of being guilty of it too. We bought 9.5ha of land and in a bad shape, all overgrown with bush and thorns and naturaly l wanted it all to be nice and functional so l went to work even before the papers were signed. Lickly, my father saw where the train was going and advised me to just establish a healthy core, then expand. I was just “slightly burnt out” when l realised what he ment. I take it easy now.
lives megre this lifestyle or lives he from the money what the books are bringing?..basically question…
scott nearing lives his lifestyle…
the trap of disney homesteading is that people not see the reality…they like to keep up their further lifestyle, and soon they recognize that money disappears quickly, espescially in the beginning phase of the project…too much things are needed on the farm…so you recognize that the car eats up all your savings, and you must look for a job besides the homesteading dream for earn some money, and for the job you need mostly a car…
for me was clear from the beginning: stop all useless money waste, no car, because my experience before was just that the car is a continous money eater. and this mostly because of the additional cost you have by law with it as insurances, inspections, taxes ecc.
the fuel problem would be not a problem for us as we know here on dow, and i would have a old car for shure if there were not the other problems with it…
real homesteading is a thing you must really love to do it, and not by romantic aspects…
to be independent from a lot of uncontrollable structures is a great thing…
In silvopasture and agroforestry it is said that you can cover up to 30% with the canopy without losing any sunlight to the crop or pasture on the ground.
Planting rows of trees with bushes in the right directions also gives you the ’edge effect’ in between with both shade and extra sunlight bouncing off the treeline creating a microclimate there but I don’t think that was the intent or thought when Megre made that statement.
I agree with Kristijan and Giorgio that it is not the thought of becoming completely self sufficcient on that one hectare but it does not overwhelm you with work and it supplies you with a great base of staples. Every family does not need a cow for instance, that’s a whole lotta milk to use but it could work as a community of those hectares with perhaps a small percentage having a few cows for instance and some others giving up part of their hectare for pasture because they are good at something that does not require land.
Man, now I sound hippie-like 
But that in my opinion is how to have a community, everybody can’t do everything themselves, that’s generally very overwhelming and won’t result in anything and absolutely no free time.
If I did my math right, it is about 7m tree spacing for the first 200 trees which is about right maybe even tight for mature deciduous trees. then he added the 50 fruit trees and 2000 bushes. Unless he meant an -or- in there. so 200 trees, 50 fruit trees OR 2000 bushes. or a combination.
I guess you might be able to get away with it for the first 10-20 years or so. It helps take care of their immediate food issues, and replants the forest. If the trees are fighting for light with bushes, chances they grow tall and straight faster.
That is why it sounds like some government sponsored food/reforestation program to me.
I have seen people grow fruit trees in rows with bushes in between so it looks more like rows of uneven hedges, planning the space between them to fit one or multiple passes with their machinery widths, youneed to remember to plan in turning around in the ends of the fields (less of a problem if you only have a hectare, you probably don’t own a 30 foot combine 
)
Edit: those farmers also claim to have higher yields in those fields, I was thinking it could be because of introducing more funghi into the bacteria dominated fields.
We bought our 2 acre land for building a foodforest. Thank you Georgio for mentioning Scott and Helen Nearing, our bible at that time. My eco period is over, only the non poisson remains. Why? For the reasons Kristijan mentioned. It is hard work and not rewarding in a financial way. Easy to burn yourself up. Cant affort that, to much tied in the system. Talked to several guys that really achieved kind of self support. Dutch John is one of them, learned a lot from him. Why can those people succeed? My opinion: they are succesfull in the system and succeed in the other system too. That is what those people have in common. It works two ways, people that are lazy and jealous will never succeed no mather the system they live in.
Thanks Marat, never heart of this guy, new points of view.
There you go JoepK. You have put your finger on the why-of-it, alright
Winners: win.
Others; whine.
As applied to self-sustaining endeavors though; winning is too one-goal; one-time; fist pumping ooh-ruhs.
You want to be a Succeeder. A very uncommon word. For people who insist on being exceptional.
Means short-term/long-term succeeding, much more often, than not. Time after time.
Sure, they have their set-backs. Their fall-downs. Knocked on your ass. Then they, sit down and rethink. Re-set. Pick up. And try again.
Mostly imho; it is that success rungs measures have to be your own; self-set, as realistic and achievable.
I destain anymore relying on others. They will either be everlasting bunnies haring off in directions I do not want to go.
Or slow mode slugs waiting for ideal situations; the stars to line up. The grant, or loan to be approved.
A line out of a romantic-comedy movie we watched last night.
“Fate; only become fate, if you make it happen.”
Another movie wisdom line:
“If it is to be . . . it is up to me!”
Steve Unruh
You live until you die. That doesn’t mean you aren’t still breathing. I would not want to have to face my God/self and explain why I failed to experience all the lessons offered in life by sitting in front of a screen watching other peoples pretend lives. Even if a person puts one plant in soil and takes the time to nourish it and observe all the little phases of it’s short existence in an intimate way, they will know far more about life than 95 per cent of the people on the Earth. Pretty hokey right? I can get worse. Fell a tree. Every ring is a record on a year of it’s existence. Split a piece of it and closely look at how it made itself from single strands running from it’s base to the top all joined together to bend and flex and take whatever nature throws at it. Chokes me up to think about how amazing that is. Maudlin old man on the way out with no way to pass on what he has seen and learned. What’s this got to do with Megre. Only that it has all been provided for you to thrive and learn and so few even open the book.
