"Perhaps the deepest form of being svoi is being rodnoi.  People who are rodnye to each other have one of two connections: they are tied to the same family line, or by the land on which they live.  These two notions are so symbolically close that the resonance from one nearly merges with the other.  Rodina, the land of the rod, is kin and rodina is earth.  When it is of the earth, a rodina can nearly smell with local soils; when it is Mother Russia, it is a vast expanse that one loves.  Land has an intimate relationship to the concept of being svoi.  Being rodnoi is a special form of being svoi, with an emphasis on the fact that that soil and kin are shared." (pg. 84)

Margaret Paxson in Solovyovo: The Story of Memory In A Russian Village, published 2005 by Woodrow Wilson Center Press