Dacha Tales: Life in the Russian Hinterland is the author's first book in the travel genre. Readers of Zalesova's novels often asked whether she drew on her own and her family's experience to write them. The answer was 'yes and no.' In Dacha Tales, she says directly that the stories retold are autobiographical, recounting her adventures recreating as a pensioner the joyful life in the countryside that she enjoyed in her childhood and adolescence. The personalities presented are real flesh and blood people: neighbors, friends, acquaintances who embody the folk wisdom and the life experience of contemporary Russia.