What peoples inhabit the Urals at present. Peoples of the Middle Urals, Sverdlovsk

Yasnaya Polyana - estate in Shchekinsky district Tula region founded in the 17th century and belonging first to the Kartsev family, then to the Volonsky and Tolstoy families. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born in it on August 28 (September 9), 1828, here he lived and worked (War and Peace, Anna Karenina, etc. were written in Yasnaya Polyana), and his grave is located here.

I went to Yasnaya Polyana on the last day of my stay in Tula. It takes about 15-20 minutes to drive from Tula itself, so it’s very close and it’s worth visiting such a remarkable place.

At the entrance to this place you can find souvenir rows with various trinkets for tourists, a couple of shops and many people who want to visit these historical places. I immediately order a tour service and, as part of a group, I go for a walk around the estate...

The museum itself suffered greatly during the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War. Documentary footage of the consequences of the looting of the estate by German troops is presented in the Soviet film “Destruction German troops near Moscow".

The commander of the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps, General Belov, whose troops participated in the liberation of those places in December 1941, recalls it this way: “With the assistance of our reconnaissance detachment, soldiers of the 217th Rifle Division of the 50th Army liberated Yasnaya Polyana. The scouts visited museum-estate of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy. When they returned, they spoke indignantly about how the Nazis had violated the memory of the great writer. They tore them from the walls rare photographs Tolstoy was taken away with them. Guderian came to the museum. One of his officers captured several valuable exhibits. The soldiers stationed in the estate heated the stoves with pieces of furniture, paintings, and books from Tolstoy’s library. The museum workers offered them firewood, but the soldiers laughed in response: “We don’t need firewood. We will burn everything that is left of your Tolstoy.” The Nazis desecrated Tolstoy's grave, which people came from all over the world to worship."

This main entrance to the territory of the estate, from here the entire inspection begins. At the entrance to the estate there are two round brick towers, simple and elegant. They were built by Tolstoy's grandfather, Prince N.S. Volkonsky. Once upon a time there were iron gates between the towers, but under Tolstoy they were no longer there. The inside of the towers is hollow; watchmen took shelter from the weather in them. To the left of the entrance is a small house called a “kamenka”. A gardener lived here. In the 90s, in Kamenka there was a school for peasant children, where Tolstoy’s eldest daughters, Tatyana Lvovna and Maria Lvovna, taught.

Prince Andrei “ordered his horse to be saddled and from the transition rode on horseback to his father’s village, in which he was born and spent his childhood... Prince Andrei rode up to the gatehouse. There was no one at the stone entrance gate and the door was unlocked.”
L. N. Tolstoy “War and Peace”.

It is worth noting that although I was in this place in March, it was like winter, cool and snowy, but in my opinion this has its own beauty...

Next, Preshpekt opens before us. “Preshpekt” is the name given to the picturesque birch alley leading from the entrance towers to the writer’s house. In a letter to his wife (1897), Tolstoy said about “Preshpekt”: “ Extraordinary beauty spring of this year in the village will awaken the dead... In the morning again the play of light and shadows from the large, densely dressed birches of the prespekt on the tall, dark green grass, and forget-me-nots, and dull nettles, and that’s all - the main thing, the waving of the birches of the prespekt is the same as it was, when, 60 years ago, I first noticed and fell in love with this beauty.”

“Preshpekt” is mentioned more than once in works of art Tolstoy, including in the novel “War and Peace”. In 1903, Lev Nikolaevich’s wife Sofya Andreevna planted spruce trees here instead of old birches. In 1965, spruce trees were again replaced by birch trees.

“The extraordinary beauty of this year’s spring in the village will awaken the dead... In the morning again the play of light and shadows from the large, densely dressed birches of the preshpect on the tall, dark green grass, and forget-me-nots, and dull nettles, and that’s all - the main thing, the waving of the birches of the preshpect is the same as it was when, 60 years ago, I first noticed and fell in love with this beauty.”
L. N. Tolstoy. From a letter to S. A. Tolstoy, 1897.

There are also a small number of ponds on the estate. But now they are naturally all covered in ice.

What was disappointing about this estate is that people are not allowed into the house on their own, like into museums. You must pay for the excursion. And what’s more, strangely enough, it’s forbidden to take photographs in the buildings themselves; I don’t even know where they came up with such a rule, but this is clearly a minus of the estate complex. Therefore, all photos are only from the outside)

The oldest building in the estate is Volkonsky's house. It is assumed that the writer’s grandfather, Prince N. S. Volkonsky, lived there for some time. Under the prince, in the central part of the house there were workshops for the production of linen, carpets, and leather processing. Under Tolstoy, servants lived here, there was a laundry and a “black kitchen”. The eastern wing of the Volkonsky House housed the art workshop of Tolstoy’s daughter Tatyana Lvovna.

Polikey, as an insignificant and dirty person, and from another village, had no patronage either through the housekeeper, or through the barman, or through the clerk or maid, and his angle was the worst, even though he was alone with his wife and children . The corners were built by the late master like this: in a ten-arshine stone hut, in the middle, there was a Russian stove, all around there was a kolidor (as the servants were called), and in each corner there was a corner fenced off with boards. (This means there was not much space, especially in the Polykeev corner, the one furthest to the door. Marriage bed with a quilted blanket and chintz pillows, a cradle with a child, a table on three legs on which they cooked, washed, put everything home and Polikey himself worked (he was a farrier), tubs, dresses, chickens, a calf and the seven themselves filled the entire corner and not they could move if the common stove did not represent its fourth part, on which both things and people lay, and if it were still impossible to go out onto the porch).
L. N. Tolstoy. "Polikushka"

There are many old outbuildings on the estate. All of them, as I understand it, are still in use. For example, a stable is full of horses - this is already real tradition Tolstoy family - love of horses. As far as I remember from the guide’s stories, Lev Nikolaevich himself went horseback riding every day and adored horses.

From the very house in which Lev Nikolaevich was born, nothing remains except this memorial stone. The house did not burn down and was not destroyed, Tolstoy himself sold it during his lifetime and accordingly the house moved)

But even the horizontal bar has been preserved, on which the great writer easily performed various exercises. Anyone can come up and try themselves at pull-ups and more)\

Outbuilding of the Kuzminskys.

Initially, the outbuilding was (like the Tolstoy House) part of an architectural ensemble founded under Prince Volkonsky and consisting of big house, in which Tolstoy was born (this house has not survived), and two outbuildings. In 1859, Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the wing, which existed until 1862. Later guests stayed here. The writer's sister-in-law lived here more often than others, younger sister his wife, Tatyana Andreevna Kuzminskaya with her family. After her name, the outbuilding was called the Kuzminsky outbuilding.

In the 50s, the Literary Museum was created in the outbuilding. In the 90s, there was a need to update the exhibition. It was decided to create rotating memorial exhibitions in the outbuilding telling about L.N. Tolstoy and his family. Thus, since 1994, the exhibitions “Faith, Hope, Love of Sofia Andreevna Tolstoy”, “Tolstoy and Cinema”, “Living Tolstoy”, “Glimpses in the Darkness”, created with the participation of the State Museum of Transport, the Tolstoy Foundation and other organizations, were successfully held. .

“The next morning we went to inspect the outbuilding where the school was located. Upstairs there were bright, large, tall rooms with a balcony and a wonderful open view. “Could I have thought then that I would come for the summer almost every year, with my family, for 25 years to this very outbuilding.”
T. A. Kuzminskaya. “My life at home and in Yasnaya Polyana”

The most interesting place of my excursion - this is, of course, the House of L.N. Tolstoy.

This is what a porch with an extension looks like. Pay attention to the beautiful patterns carved on the wood, all this was done at the request of Lev Nikolaevich himself, he really liked this design idea.

As I already wrote above, you cannot take photographs in the house itself, which is a pity, since all the decoration has been preserved unchanged since the time when Tolstoy lived in the house. Probably the floors creaked in the same way in his time)

Tolstoy settled in this house (former outbuilding) in 1856. He brought his young wife here in 1862. Later, the small outbuilding was no longer enough for the growing family, and Tolstoy expanded it by adding several outbuildings.
Tolstoy lived in this house for more than 50 years. All things, books, paintings here are genuine: they belonged to Tolstoy, his family, and even the writer’s ancestors. The house still maintains the furnishings of 1910, the last year of Tolstoy’s life.

There are flower beds around the house. Sofya Andreevna, Tolstoy’s wife, loved flowers very much and took care of them herself.

Near the house there are outbuildings. Now is the time to remember the “find the cat” game, try to see the cat) And there are three of them in the photo)

For those who can’t find our smaller friends, I’ll post them in close-up)

And what's most interesting is the place angry dog, in the kennel sits the sweetest cat of the soul)

After inspecting the residential building, I went to the grave site of the great writer, which is located not far from the house. The path there is well trodden.

IN last years During his life, Tolstoy repeatedly expressed a request to be buried in the forest of Stary Zakaz, on the edge of a ravine, in the “place of the green stick.” Tolstoy heard the legend of the green stick as a child from his beloved brother Nikolai. When Nikolai was 12 years old, he announced a great secret to his family. Once it is revealed, no one will die anymore, there will be no wars or diseases, and people will be “ant brothers.” All that remains is to find the green stick buried on the edge of the ravine. The secret is written on it. The Tolstoy children played “ant brothers”, sitting under chairs covered with scarves; sitting all together in a cramped space, they felt that they felt good together “under one roof” because they loved each other. And they dreamed of a “brotherhood of ants” for all people. Already an old man, Tolstoy would write: “It was very, very good, and I thank God that I could play it. We called it a game, and yet everything in the world is a game, except this.” L.N. Tolstoy returned to the idea of universal happiness and love in artistic creativity, and in philosophical treatises, and in journalistic articles.

Tolstoy also recalls the story of the green stick in the first version of his will: “So that no rituals are performed when burying my body in the ground; a wooden coffin, and whoever wants, will take or carry Old Order into the forest, opposite the ravine, in place of the green stick.”

And this is how modestly the grave of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy looks.

But this was not the end of the study of the surrounding area. By chance, not far from Tolstoy’s estate, I also saw some interesting buildings and went to see what they were.

This is what the memorial plaques confirm. This place, as it turned out, is also connected with the name of Tolstoy.

With this I leave Yasnaya Polyana, leaving in my memory one of the most interesting excursions, from those that I have ever seen. And there was a clear desire to read a couple of books by Lev Nikolaevich, by the way, Sevastopol stories I have already read, and now I am reading War and Peace) A monumental work, like Tolstoy’s personality itself.

I will also note this point: on the road between Tula and Yasnaya Polyana you can see a grandiose urban landscape in the form of the oldest Tula enterprise - the Kosogorsk Metallurgical Plant.

The plant was opened in 1897, and what is noteworthy is that Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy himself was present at the opening. Now this plant is seen as some kind of unreal industrial giant, creating something fantastic landscape- this is for people like me who are far from various working industries. Believe me, it looks much more majestic live)

This is where I finish my Tula sketches and there are many other stories ahead, no less interesting)

From Prince Nikolai Volkonsky Yasnaya Polyana passed to him only daughter, who a year after her father’s death married Count Nikolai Tolstoy. He completed the large house in which his family settled in 1824 and increased his land holdings. Five children were born into the Tolstoy family: four sons and a daughter. In 1847, the parental estates were divided between the Tolstoy brothers. Leo Tolstoy was given Yasnaya Polyana, in which he settled, but soon, disappointed by the unsuccessful management experience, he left for Moscow, then to St. Petersburg, then entered the military service, where he needed money to publish "Military List" - a magazine for soldiers. Because of this, a large Yasnaya Polyana house was sold for removal. He was transported 40 versts (about 42.7 kilometers) from Yasnaya Polyana to the village of Dolgoye, where it stood until 1913 and was dismantled due to its disrepair. At the construction site, only a stone from its foundation remained, on which the inscription was subsequently carved: “Here stood the house in which L.N. Tolstoy was born.”

At the end of the 1850s, Leo Tolstoy retired and returned to Yasnaya Polyana. He settled in one of the outbuildings, which eventually became home for him and his family. Subsequently, extensions were added to the central part of the house - several rooms arranged in an enfilade - as the Tolstoy family grew.

In 1859, Leo Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children in the outbuilding (the Tolstoys called it “another house”, and later - the Kuzminsky outbuilding). He expanded the forests Apple orchard. Gradually, the area of Yasnaya Polyana gardens quadrupled and exceeded 40 hectares, and forest plantings in Yasnaya Polyana began to occupy 254 hectares.

In 1892, Leo Tolstoy renounced his property and divided everything he owned among his heirs. Yasnaya Polyana was given to his wife, Sofya Andreevna, and his very young youngest son Vanya, who died of scarlet fever in 1895.

In October 1910, fulfilling his decision to live his last years in accordance with his views, Leo Tolstoy secretly left Yasnaya Polyana, but on the way he fell ill with pneumonia and died on November 20 (November 7, old style). He was buried in Yasnaya Polyana on the edge of a ravine in the Stary Zakaz forest.

The transformation of Yasnaya Polyana into a museum was complex and a long process. In 1911, the writer's widow Sofya Andreevna twice appealed to Emperor Nicholas II with a request to accept Yasnaya Polyana under state protection, but was refused. It was decided to grant the writer’s widow a pension, which was partly used to maintain the estate. Sofya Andreevna did everything possible to keep the house, park and estate buildings in their original form. The children of Leo Tolstoy took an active part in the life of the estate: Sergei (author of the first guide to Yasnaya Polyana, 1914) and Alexandra.

The estate survived the years Civil War. Out of respect for the memory of Tolstoy, the Yasnaya Polyana peasants saved her from the pogrom.

On May 27, 1919, the People's Commissariat of Education extradited Alexandra Tolstoy safe conduct to Yasnaya Polyana, which spoke about the exceptional cultural value objects located on its territory. The estate was declared a national treasure and taken under state protection. On June 10, 1921, a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) was issued, according to which Tolstoy’s estate in Yasnaya Polyana was declared a state museum-reserve. Alexandra Tolstaya was appointed “Commissioner-Curator” of the museum, who played a huge role in the creation of the museum and its development in the 1920s. But in 1929 she was forced to leave the Soviet Union forever.

In the 1930s, special attention was paid to the restoration and preservation of Yasnaya Polyana in its historically intact form. The study of the history of Yasnaya Polyana began based on documents and surveys of Tolstoy’s contemporaries; The apiary was restored, the gardens were put in order, trees were planted to replace the extinct ones. The work was carried out under the direction of the Botanical Garden of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In 1940, masters of the State Tretyakov Gallery We restored works of art in Tolstoy’s house (canvases by Repin, Ge, Kramskoy). Yasnaya Polyana was transferred to the jurisdiction of the USSR Academy of Sciences; The museum began to turn into a research center for studying the legacy of Leo Tolstoy.

During the Great Patriotic War, the museum exhibits were evacuated to Tomsk. The evacuation was organized by the writer’s granddaughter Sofya Tolstaya-Yesenina, who in 1941 became the director of the United Tolstoy Museums. Yasnaya Polyana was occupied for 47 days, from October 29 to December 14, 1941. During the retreat of the Nazi troops, Tolstoy's house was set on fire, but the fire was extinguished, and restoration work immediately began on the estate. The first restoration was completed by May 1942. In May 1945, the exhibits of Tolstoy's house returned to their original places. The restoration of the museum-estate continued until the mid-1950s, when some outbuildings were recreated, an apple orchard that had frozen out before the war, and the house was restored.

In 1978, in honor of the 150th anniversary of Leo Tolstoy, the museum was awarded the order Lenin.

In 1986, the Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate received the status of a State Memorial and nature reserve; in 1993 - the status of a cultural object of particular importance.

In 1994, the great-great-grandson of Leo Tolstoy, Vladimir Tolstoy, was appointed to the post of director of the museum. Since 2012, the Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate has been headed by Ekaterina Tolstaya, historian, wife of Vladimir Tolstoy.

Since 2000, the Tolstoy Family Congress has been officially held in Yasnaya Polyana every two years, bringing together the writer’s descendants from different countries peace.

Museum-Estate of L.N. Tolstoy "Yasnaya Polyana" occupies 412 hectares of the reserve. The museum's exhibition includes the writer's house, a literary museum, his library, Volkonsky's house, Tolstoy's grave, an ancient linden park, ponds, forests, meadows, arable lands and gardens, as well as dozens of memorial objects and the richest funds of priceless relics associated with the life of the writer. Furnishings in the house-museum of L.N. Tolstoy has been preserved the same as the writer himself left it when he left Yasnaya Polyana forever in 1910.

The structure of the museum includes a number of branches. First of all, these are cultural and historical places associated with the name of Tolstoy: Nikolskoye-Vyazemskoye, Pirogovo, Pokrovskoye, Mansurovo, Kozlova Zaseka station, Krapivna. Branches also include scientific- Cultural Center"Yasnaya Polyana" in Tula, where the publishing house and art gallery are located.

The material was prepared based on open sources

Immediately after the wedding, the Tolstoys settled in Yasnaya Polyana. Nikolai Ilyich completed the large house in which his family settled in 1824 and increased his land holdings. He bought out his family estate Nikolskoye-Vyazemskoye, taken into custody for debts, acquired rich estate Pirogovo and reliably provided for the future of his children. Maria Nikolaevna seemed to live in a slightly different world; she was more interested in spiritual life.

Extremely religious, she probably saw her family as a gift from God, since she was already thirty-one when she married and happily devoted herself entirely to her husband and children. Five children were born into the Tolstoy family: sons Nikolai, Sergei, Dmitry and Lev and daughter Maria. Happy life family ended a few months after birth youngest daughter- Maria Nikolaevna died in 1830.

At this time, her youngest son Lev was not even two years old. Tolstoy did not remember his mother, only vague memories of her lived in his soul, but he idolized his mother. According to him, she always remained a “sacred ideal” for him. And years after her death, Tolstoy especially loved and carefully preserved those corners of the Yasnaya Polyana estate that reminded him of his mother - Nizhny (English) a park, a gazebo-tower in it, a greenhouse.

Lev Nikolaevich's childhood in the estate is a spacious and cozy father's house, a large patriarchal family, noisy games with his brothers. The large house had a children's room, a classroom, a waiter's room, a piano room, a sofa room, a large living room, a small living room - supposedly about forty rooms in total. The life of the family proceeded measuredly and slowly, in strict accordance with traditions.

When Tolstoy was nine years old, his father died, and the children’s aunt, Nikolai Ilyich’s sister Alexandra Ilyinichna Osten-Saken, who lived with them, became the children’s guardian, and after her death in 1841, another aunt, Pelageya Ilyinichna Yushkova, became their guardian. She took her nephews to Kazan, where she lived with her husband. Tolstoy would return to Yasnaya Polyana - as a master - only in 1847, leaving his studies at Kazan University.

In 1847, the parental estates were divided between the Tolstoy brothers. “According to custom, as the youngest in the family, they gave me the estate in which they lived - Yasnaya Polyana,” writes Lev Nikolaevich. He immediately decides to radically change his life and settle in his village. Like the hero of the story “The Morning of the Landowner” Dmitry Nekhlyudov, nineteen-year-old Tolstoy with all his soul strives to “devote himself to life in the village” because he feels that he was “born for it.”

But even the first enterprises cause disappointments. Everything turns out differently than he expected, and the peasants are distrustful of the young master’s endeavors. Disillusioned with his desire to do good, he enlists in military service.

Until 1857, Tolstoy was not at the estate, but the farm was growing little by little, and his brother Dmitry Nikolaevich wrote to him about Yasnaya: “... going to Moscow in May, I... drove up to the outbuilding, and from there... walked around the garden and the exhibition, where then everything was in excellent condition. flowers, and this gave me such pleasure that I drove all the way to Moscow with a pleasant impression. On way back I also stopped by Yasnoye; ...ate pears, which you have in abundance today.”

In the absence of the owner, the appearance of the central part of the estate changed dramatically: the large Yasnaya Polyana house was sold for removal, and the majestic architectural ensemble planned by Prince Volkonsky lost its integrity. At this time, Tolstoy urgently needed money to publish “Military List” - a magazine for soldiers, which he conceived with a group of officers who served with him in the Crimea. The publication was banned, the money was dispersed into little things, and the house, transported 40 miles from Yasnaya Polyana to the village of Dolgoye, stood there until 1913 and was dismantled due to its disrepair. At the site of the building, only a stone from its foundation remained, on which the inscription was subsequently carved: “Here stood the house in which L.N. Tolstoy was born.” In December 1897, Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “On the 4th I went to Dolgoye. A very touching impression of the collapsed house. A swarm of memories." The large Yasnaya Polyana house was resurrected by the writer in the pages of the trilogy “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth”.

At the end of the 1850s, Tolstoy retired and returned to Yasnaya, although he did not live there permanently, spending a lot of time in St. Petersburg and Moscow. He settled in one of the outbuildings, which eventually became home for him and his family - he lived in it for more than 50 years. Along with him, old furniture, books, great-grandfather's mirrors of the 18th century, and family portraits moved into the new house. This house is today known as House-Museum of L. N. Tolstoy.

At this time Russia entered into new era- leisurely manor life was becoming a thing of the past. Tolstoy undertook two trips abroad, the impressions of which influenced the course of life in Yasnopolyansk, being translated into new ideas and projects of the owner of the estate, who had a creative approach to any business. Returning to Russia, he eagerly set about transforming Yasnaya. One of his most wonderful undertakings was a school for peasant children, opened in 1859 in an outbuilding (the Tolstoys called it “another house”, and later - Outbuilding of the Kuzminskys. It was absolutely new school, built on the principles of freedom and creativity.

On September 23, 1862, Lev Nikolaevich married the daughter of a Moscow medical doctor, Sofya Andreevna Bers. The life of the young people mostly took place in Yasnaya Polyana, where at first it was not easy for the young countess to get comfortable. Gradually, she managed to become the real mistress of the estate, and soon a woman’s hand began to be felt here in everything: the house became cozier and more comfortable, elegant flower beds appeared around it.

Every spring the Tolstoys admired extraordinary beauty blooming gardens. “The apple trees bloom unusually,” Sofya Andreevna wrote in her diary. “There’s something magical and crazy about their blossoms.” I've never seen anything like it. You look out the window into the garden and every time you will be amazed by this airy, white cloud of flowers in the air, with pink tint sometimes with fresh green background in the distance."

The gardens provided a steady income to the estate. They were always rented out to tenants for a price of two to five thousand a year, and according to the terms of the agreement, part of the apples were kept for themselves.

Tolstoy's forest plantings turned out to be even more extensive. Before him, the Yasnaya Polyana forests were sections of old forestland. Their ancient names have been preserved to this day: Chepyzh, Old Order, Arkovsky Verkh. Tolstoy's forestry activities significantly expanded the forest areas of Yasnaya Polyana; the newly appeared forests not only decorated the estate, but also brought undoubted practical benefits: they secured the spreading slopes of numerous ravines. In addition, the lands in the Yasnaya Polyana area were very poor, and it was more profitable to plant forests here. In total, forest plantings in Yasnaya Polyana occupy a huge area - 254 hectares.

Horses occupied a significant place in Tolstoy's life. In Yasnaya Polyana, as in any estate, there were always horses, both working and traveling. In the early 70s, Tolstoy bought land near Samara and, as his eldest son Sergei Lvovich writes, wanted to breed “steppe horses and sheep” there. Tolstoy even wanted to develop his own breed by crossing purebred English riding horses with fleet-footed steppe horses. The plant grew to 4,000 heads, but during the hungry years the horses began to fall, and, according to S. L. Tolstoy, “in the 80s this business somehow melted away unnoticed.” And in Yasnaya Polyana there remained horses brought from Samara, whose descendants lived in Tolstoy’s last years. In 1897, Bashkirs came from Samara province to Yasnaya, milked mares and made kumiss here.

Since the 1860s, the Yasnaya Polyana house of the Tolstoys also began to change: from now on it grew together with the family. During the years of marriage, the Tolstoys had 13 children. Five of them died in early childhood, before mature age eight survived - sons Sergei, Ilya, Lev, Andrey, Mikhail and daughters Tatyana, Maria and Alexandra. To the central part of the house - several rooms located in an enfilade - in different years extensions were added.

In 1881, the Tolstoys bought a house in Moscow. The older children grew up, they needed to continue their education, the daughters needed to leave. Now the family spent winters in Moscow. However, the city weighed heavily on the writer; he needed a “bath village life" In the spring, he strived to quickly return to Yasnaya Polyana, where he could breathe and work so well. In recent years, Tolstoy no longer moved to Moscow for the winter, preferring peace and solitude to Yasnaya.

By that time, the Yasnaya Polyana estate no longer belonged to Lev Nikolaevich. Back in 1892, in accordance with his views, he renounced his property and divided everything he owned among his heirs. Yasnaya Polyana was received by Sofya Andreevna and a very small younger son Vanechka, who later died of scarlet fever (in 1895, at the age of seven).

In the last years of Tolstoy's life, the atmosphere of the house changed; family discord marred the lives of its inhabitants. On October 28, 1910, Lev Nikolaevich left Yasnaya Polyana forever. On November 9, 1910 he was buried

Posted Thu, 21/07/2016 - 23:48 by Cap

Yasnaya Polyana is a unique Russian estate, the family estate of the great Russian writer Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Here he was born, lived most life, he is buried here. Here was his only beloved home, the nest of his family and clan. It is in Yasnaya Polyana that you can truly “plunge” into the world of Tolstoy and his works - every year this famous museum is visited by a huge number of people from all over the world.
The first information about Yasnaya Polyana dates back to 1652. Since the middle of the 18th century, the estate belonged to the writer’s maternal ancestors, the princes Volkonsky. During the XVIII and XIX centuries a unique estate landscape was created here - parks, gardens, picturesque alleys, ponds, a rich greenhouse; an architectural ensemble was created, which included a large manor house and two outbuildings.

Together with architectural ensemble this landscape has been preserved for more than a hundred years - according to the model of 1910, the last year of Tolstoy's life. One of the estate outbuildings eventually became a home for the writer and his family. Tolstoy lived here for more than 50 years, and here he created masterpieces of world literature. All interior items and works of art are original and preserve the atmosphere of the life of Lev Nikolaevich and his loved ones. The museum's collection includes more than fifty thousand exhibits, the most unique of which are furnishings from the House of L.N. Tolstoy and the writer’s library, included in the UNESCO Memory of the World register.

Century-old trees and young growth, picturesque park alleys and secluded forest paths, the deep surface of ponds and the bottomless sky - all this is Yasnaya Polyana, amazing world, who inspired Leo Tolstoy. The writer did not leave this world even after his death - his grave is located in the Old Order forest, on the edge of a ravine. Tolstoy himself indicated the place of his burial, linking it with the memory of his older brother and his story about the “green stick” on which the secret of universal happiness is written.

Fate was favorable to the Tolstoy family nest throughout the 20th century. The estate was not damaged during the Civil War - out of respect for the memory of Tolstoy, Yasnaya Polyana peasants saved it from pogrom. Eleven years after the writer’s death, in 1921, through the efforts of his youngest daughter Alexandra Lvovna, a museum was opened in Yasnaya Polyana. The descendants of Lev Nikolaevich continued to take part in the fate of the museum. In 1941, when the threat of occupation loomed over Yasnaya, the writer’s granddaughter Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya-Yesenina, who headed the museum, organized the evacuation of most of the exhibits from Tolstoy’s House to Tomsk.

Volkonsky House

Absolutely new stage The development of Yasnaya Polyana began in 1994, when the great-great-grandson of Lev Nikolayevich Vladimir Ilyich Tolstoy became the director of the museum. From this moment we can talk about the return of the Tolstoys to Yasnaya Polyana and a return to the history, roots, traditions of old Russian noble estate. These traditions are continued by the current director of the museum, Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Tolstaya, who took this post in 2012.

On this moment Yasnaya Polyana is a large museum complex and a recognized cultural center of world significance. In addition to the Tolstoy museum, it includes a whole network of branches. But the center still remains the estate - real, “living”, exactly the way Tolstoy knew and loved it. Many species are preserved here economic activity: apples are picked in huge gardens, the apiary brings honey, graceful horses are pleasing to the eye... The entire “Yasnaya Polyana” estate with its unique beauty retains not only its original appearance, but also the spirit of Tolstoy's era.

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ESTATE
Yasnaya Polyana is an estate in the Shchekinsky district of the Tula region (14 km southwest of Tula), founded in the 17th century and belonging first to the Kartsev family, then to the Volkonsky and Tolstoy family. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born in it on August 28 (September 9), 1828, here he lived and worked (War and Peace, Anna Karenina, etc. were written in Yasnaya Polyana), and his grave is located here. Main role The writer’s grandfather N.S. Volkonsky played a role in creating the appearance of the estate.

Architectural ensemble of the estate
House of L. N. Tolstoy
Volkonsky House
Kuzminsky wing
Entry tower
Stables and carriage house
Instrument shed
Kucherskaya
Forge and carpentry
Bath
Bath
garden house
Zhitnya and Riga
Greenhouse
Bench by L. N. Tolstoy
Birch bridge
Gazebo tower

Kucherskaya in the Yasnaya Polyana estate

House-Museum of L. N. Tolstoy
Having moved to the estate, L.N. Tolstoy expanded one of the wings. The writer lived in this house for more than 50 years and created most of his works in it. Now the House is a museum of L.N. Tolstoy.

The museum was created by the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on June 10, 1921, largely thanks to the efforts of A. L. Tolstoy, daughter of Lev Nikolaevich. She and her brother Sergei Lvovich were the first directors of the museum. During the Great Patriotic War, its exhibits were evacuated to Tomsk, and Yasnaya Polyana itself was occupied for 45 days. During the retreat of the Nazi troops, Tolstoy's house was set on fire, but the fire was extinguished. By May 1942, the estate was reopened to visitors. In the 1950s, large-scale restoration work.

The museum's exhibition includes the original furnishings of the estate, personal belongings of L. N. Tolstoy, and his library (22,000 books). The furnishings in the L.N. Tolstoy house-museum have been left the same as the writer himself left it when he left Yasnaya Polyana forever in 1910. The current director of the museum (2015) is V. I. Tolstoy, the great-great-grandson of L. N. Tolstoy.

Volkonsky House
Prince N. S. Volkonsky, L. N. Tolstoy’s grandfather, completely rebuilt the estate. His house is the oldest building on the estate.

Kuzminsky wing
In this house in 1859-1862 there was a school opened by L.N. Tolstoy for peasant children. Then guests stayed in the outbuilding, most often T. A. Kuzminskaya, Lev Nikolaevich’s sister-in-law, stayed.

Bath
In the 1890s, on the Middle Pond in an English park, the writer built a bathhouse, which in different years was either knocked together from boards or woven from brushwood.

Bridge for the former Yasnaya Polyana mill
During the life of L.N. Tolstoy, on the territory of the Yasnaya Polyana estate on the Voronka River, there was a mill that was used for household needs. Currently there is none. All that remains is a bridge adapted for installing a mill; one of the parts of the mill (a stone circle) lies on the shore.

autumn morning in Yasnaya Polyana

Natural composition
Entrance gate

Kucherskaya
Big pond
Lower Pond
Middle Pond
Alley "Preshpekt"
Kliny Park
Abramovskaya landing
Afonina Grove
Diagon Glade
"Christmas trees"
"Chepyzh"
Red Garden
Old Garden
Young garden
Lower Park
Native forest
Guseva Polyana
“Tree of Love” (birch and oak growing from one place and intertwined with each other)
Voronka River

Preshpekt
“Preshpekt” is a birch alley that appeared in Yasnaya Polyana around 1800. It starts from the entrance towers and goes to the Writer's House. “Preshpekt” was repeatedly mentioned in the works of Lev Nikolaevich.

Leo Tolstoy's grave

In the last years of his life, Tolstoy repeatedly expressed a request to bury him in the forest of Stary Zakaz, on the edge of a ravine, in the “place of the green stick.” Tolstoy heard the legend of the green stick as a child from his beloved brother Nikolai. When Nikolai was 12 years old, he announced a great secret to his family. Once it is revealed, no one will die anymore, there will be no wars or diseases, and people will be “ant brothers.” All that remains is to find the green stick buried on the edge of the ravine. The secret is written on it. The Tolstoy children played “ant brothers”, sitting under chairs covered with scarves; sitting all together in a cramped space, they felt that they felt good together “under one roof” because they loved each other. And they dreamed of a “brotherhood of ants” for all people. Already an old man, Tolstoy would write: “It was very, very good, and I thank God that I could play it. We called it a game, and yet everything in the world is a game, except this.” L. N. Tolstoy returned to the idea of universal happiness and love in his artistic work, in philosophical treatises, and in journalistic articles.

Other facts
The museum was badly damaged during the Great Patriotic War. Documentary footage of the consequences of the looting of the estate by German troops is presented in the Soviet film “The Defeat of German Troops near Moscow.”
The commander of the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps, General Belov, whose troops participated in the liberation of those places in December 1941, recalls it this way:
With the assistance of our reconnaissance detachment, soldiers of the 217th Infantry Division of the 50th Army liberated Yasnaya Polyana. The scouts visited the museum-estate of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. When they returned, they spoke indignantly about how the Nazis had violated the memory of the great writer. They tore the rare photographs of Tolstoy from the walls and took them with them. Guderian came to the museum. One of his officers captured several valuable exhibits as “souvenirs” for his boss. The soldiers stationed in the estate heated the stoves with pieces of furniture, paintings, and books from Tolstoy’s library. The museum workers offered them firewood, but the soldiers laughed in response: “We don’t need firewood. We will burn everything that is left of your Tolstoy.” The Nazis desecrated Tolstoy’s grave, which people came from all over the world to worship.

LEV TOLSTOY AND HIS FAMILY
ABOUT family customs and the traditions of the count’s family, Valeria Dmitrieva, a researcher at the department, tells traveling exhibitions museum-estate "Yasnaya Polyana".

Valeria Dmitrieva
- Before meeting Sofia Andreevna, Lev Nikolaevich, at that time a young writer and an enviable groom, had been trying to find a bride for several years. He was gladly received in houses where there were girls of marriageable age. He corresponded with many potential brides, looked, chose, evaluated... And then one day Lucky case brought him to the house of the Bers, with whom he was familiar. This wonderful family raised three daughters at once: the eldest Lisa, the middle Sonya and the youngest Tanya. Lisa was passionately in love with Count Tolstoy. The girl did not hide her feelings, and those around her already considered Tolstoy to be the groom of the eldest of the sisters. But Lev Nikolaevich had a different opinion.
The writer himself had tender feelings for Sonya Bers, which he hinted at in his famous message.
On the card table, the count wrote with chalk the first letters of three sentences: “V. m. and p.s. With. and. n. m.m.s. and n. With. In the With. With. l. V. n. m. and v. With. L.Z.m.v. with v. With. T". Tolstoy later wrote that his entire future life depended on this moment.
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, photo from 1868

According to his plan, Sofya Andreevna was supposed to unravel the message. If he deciphers the text, then she is his destiny. And Sofya Andreevna understood what Lev Nikolaevich meant: “Your youth and need for happiness remind me too vividly of my old age and the impossibility of happiness. There is a false view in your family about me and your sister Lisa. You and your sister Tanya will protect me.” She wrote that it was providence. By the way, Tolstoy later described this moment in the novel Anna Karenina. It was with chalk on the card table that Konstantin Levin encrypted Kitty’s marriage proposal.

Happy Lev Nikolaevich wrote a marriage proposal and sent it to the Bers. Both the girl and her parents agreed. The modest wedding took place on September 23, 1862. The couple got married in Moscow, in the Kremlin Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Immediately after the ceremony, Tolstoy asked his young wife how she wanted to continue family life: whether to go on a honeymoon abroad, whether to stay in Moscow with parents or move to Yasnaya Polyana. Sofya Andreevna replied that she immediately wanted to start a serious family life in Yasnaya Polyana. Later, the Countess often regretted her decision and how early her girlhood ended and that she never visited anywhere.
In the fall of 1862, Sofya Andreevna moved to live at her husband’s estate Yasnaya Polyana, this place became her love and her destiny. Both remember the first 20 years of their lives as very happy. Sofya Andreevna looked at her husband with adoration and admiration. He treated her with great tenderness, reverence and love. When Lev Nikolaevich left the estate on business, they always wrote letters to each other.
Lev Nikolaevich:
“I don’t need anything but you. 1863 January 29 - February. Moscow."
“I’m glad that I was entertained this day, otherwise my dear I was already feeling scared and sad for you. It’s funny to say: as soon as I left, I felt how terrible it was to leave you. - Goodbye, darling, be a good girl and write. 1865 July 27. Warrior."
“How sweet you are to me; How you are better to me, purer, more honest, dearer, dearer than anyone in the world. I look at your children's portraits and rejoice. 1867 June 18. Moscow."

Sofya Andreevna
Sofya Andreevna:
“Lyovochka, my dear darling, I really want to see you at this moment, and again drink tea together under the windows in Nikolskoye, and run off on foot to Alexandrovka and again live our sweet life at home. Goodbye, darling, darling, I kiss you warmly. Write and take care of yourself, this is my will. July 29, 1865"
“My dear Lyovochka, I have gone through a whole day without you, and with such a joyful heart I sit down to write to you. This is my real and greatest consolation, writing to you even about the most insignificant things. June 17, 1867"
“It’s such hard work to live in the world without you; everything is wrong, everything seems wrong and not worth it. I didn’t want to write you anything like that, but it just happened. And everything is so cramped, so petty, something better is needed, and this best is only you, and you are forever alone. September 4, 1869"
Fat people loved to spend time together big family. They were great inventors, and Sofya Andreevna herself managed to create a special family world with its own traditions. This was felt most of all on the days family holidays, as well as on Christmas, Easter, Trinity. They were very loved in Yasnaya Polyana. The fat people went to liturgy at the parish St. Nicholas Church, located two kilometers south of the estate.
Turkey and the signature dish, Ankovsky pie, were served for the festive dinner. Sofya Andreevna brought his recipe to Yasnaya Polyana from her family, to whom the doctor and friend Professor Anke passed it on.
Tolstoy's son Ilya Lvovich recalls:
"Ever since I can remember, in all special occasions life, on major holidays and name days, it was always and invariably served in the form of a cake “Ankovsky pie”. Without this, dinner would not be dinner and the celebration would not be a celebration.”
Summer at the estate turned into an endless holiday with frequent picnics, tea parties with jam and games. fresh air. They played croquet and tennis, swam in the Funnel, and went boating. Arranged musical evenings, home performances...

Birch bridge

We often dined in the courtyard and drank tea on the veranda. In the 1870s, Tolstoy brought children such fun as “giant steps.” This is a large pole with ropes tied at the top, with a loop on them. One foot was inserted into the loop, the other was pushed off the ground and thus jumped. The children loved these “giant steps” so much that Sofya Andreevna recalled how difficult it was to tear them away from the fun: the children did not want to eat or sleep.
At the age of 66, Tolstoy began riding a bicycle. The whole family was worried about him, wrote letters to him so that he would leave this dangerous occupation. But the count said that he was experiencing sincere childish joy and would under no circumstances leave his bicycle. Lev Nikolaevich even learned to ride a bicycle at Manezh, and the city government gave him a ticket with permission to ride along the city streets.
Moscow city government. Ticket No. 2300, issued to Tolstoy for cycling on the streets of Moscow. 1896
In winter, the Tolstoys enthusiastically skated; Lev Nikolaevich loved this activity very much. He spent at least an hour at the skating rink, teaching his sons, and Sofya Andreevna - his daughters. Near the house in Khamovniki, he filled the skating rink himself.
Traditional home entertainment in the family: reading aloud and literary lotto. Excerpts from works were written on the cards, and you had to guess the name of the author. IN later years Tolstoy was read an excerpt from Anna Karenina, he listened and, not recognizing his text, highly appreciated it.
The family loved to play Mailbox. All week long, family members dropped pieces of paper into it with jokes, poems, or notes about what was bothering them. On Sunday, the whole family sat in a circle, opened the mailbox and read aloud. If they were humorous poems or stories, they tried to guess who could have written them. If there were personal experiences, we sorted it out. Modern families You can take this experience into account, because now we talk so little to each other.
For Christmas, a Christmas tree was always put up in the Tolstoys' house. They prepared decorations for her themselves: gilded nuts, figures of animals cut out of cardboard, wooden dolls dressed in different costumes, and much more. A masquerade was held at the estate, in which Lev Nikolaevich, and Sofya Andreevna, and their children, and guests, and servants, and peasant children took part.
“On Christmas Day 1867, the Englishwoman Hannah and I were passionate about making a Christmas tree. But Lev Nikolaevich did not like either Christmas trees or any celebrations and then strictly forbade buying toys for children. But Hannah and I asked for permission to have a Christmas tree and to be allowed to buy Seryozha only a horse, and Tanya only a doll. We decided to invite both the courtyard and peasant children. For them, in addition to various sweet things, gilded nuts, gingerbread cookies and other things, we bought wooden naked skeleton dolls, and dressed them in a wide variety of costumes, to the great delight of our children... About 40 children from the yard and from the village gathered, and the children and I were It’s a joy to distribute everything from the Christmas tree to the kids.”
Skeleton dolls, English plum pudding (pudding doused in rum, lit while serving), masquerade are becoming an integral part of the Christmas holidays in Yasnaya Polyana.
Sofya Andreevna was mainly involved in raising children in the Tolstoy family. The children wrote that their mother spent most of the time with them, but they all respected their father very much and were quite afraid of them. His word was the last and decisive, that is, the law. The children wrote that if you needed a quarter for anything, you could go to your mother and ask. She will ask you in detail what you need, and with persuasion to spend it, she will carefully give you the money. Or you could approach your father, who would simply look straight at him, glare at him and say: “Take it from the table.” He looked so soulfully that everyone preferred to beg for money from their mother.

Leo Tolstoy's family

The Tolstoy family spent a lot of money on the education of their children. They all got a good home elementary education, and the boys then studied at Tula and Moscow gymnasiums, but only the eldest son, Sergei Tolstoy, graduated from the university.
The most important thing that children were taught in the Tolstoy family was to be sincere, kind people and treat each other well.
In their marriage, Lev Nikolaevich and Sofia Andreevna had 13 children, but only eight of them survived to adulthood.
The most difficult loss for the family was the death of their last son, Vanechka. When the baby was born, Sofya Andreevna was 43 years old, Lev Nikolaevich was 59 years old.

Vanechka Tolstoy
Vanya was a real peacemaker and united the whole family with his love. Lev Nikolaevich and Sofya Andreevna loved him very much and experienced the untimely death of their youngest son, who did not live to be seven years old, from scarlet fever.
“Nature tries to give the best and, seeing that the world is not yet ready for them, takes them back...” These were the words Tolstoy said after Vanechka’s death.
In the last years of his life, Lev Nikolaevich did not feel well and often gave his family cause for serious concern. In January 1902, Sofya Andreevna wrote:
“My Lyovochka is dying... And I realized that my life cannot remain in me without him. I have been living with him for forty years. For everyone he is a celebrity, for me he is my whole existence, our lives went into each other, and, my God! How much guilt and remorse has accumulated... It’s all over, you can’t return it. Help, Lord! How much love and tenderness I gave him, but how much of my weaknesses upset him! Forgive me, Lord! I’m sorry, my dear, dear dear husband!”
But Tolstoy understood all his life what a treasure he had inherited. A few months before his death, in July 1910, he wrote:
“My assessment of your life with me is this: I, a depraved, deeply vicious sexually person, no longer in my first youth, married you, a pure, good, intelligent 18-year-old girl, and despite this, my dirty, vicious past, you She lived with me for almost 50 years, loving me, working a hard life, giving birth, feeding, raising, caring for children and me, not succumbing to those temptations that could so easily seize any woman in your position, strong, healthy, beautiful. But you lived in such a way that I have nothing to reproach you with.”

Plan diagram of Yasnaya Polyana

A TRIP TO YASNAYA POLYANA
The museum-estate of Leo Tolstoy "Yasnaya Polyana" is a popular attraction of Tula and the entire Tula region. Perhaps only the Museum of Weapons can compete with Yasnaya Polyana in popularity. And yet, still... These are things of a different order. Leo Tolstoy is the universe, the genius of Russian literature. It is impossible to know where all this came from without getting to know his estate.
When uttering the phrase “On a visit to Leo Tolstoy,” you are essentially not lying. This is the Writer's House. He was born in Yasnaya Polyana, lived for almost 60 years, and here he conceived and wrote many of his immortal works(“War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, etc.). This is where he is buried. Leo Tolstoy is a man - a legend, everyone who loves Russian literature and history should visit here.
Elena Sebyakina talks about her trip to the Yasnaya Polyana estate. This post is a continuation of her story about getting to know Tula and its surroundings.
Two weeks before the trip I heard a program about L.N. Tolstoy, I learned a lot of new and interesting things. This is probably why the idea of a trip to Tula was born, with the condition of a subsequent visit to Tolstoy’s house.
We decided to start the trip to Yasnaya Polyana from Kozlova Zaseka station. The distance from the hotel was only 14 kilometers. This is the railway station where Tolstoy received his mail and made calls from. From here he secretly went south in November 1910, fell ill on the way and died a few days later at the Astapovo station. The coffin with the writer’s body was brought to the same station two days later.
In 2001, restoration work was carried out here and an exhibition was opened “ Railway Lev Tolstoy". The station is very clean and beautiful. I didn’t like the museum, maybe I should have taken a tour, especially since the price of a ticket with a tour is only 40 rubles.
The presented objects simply allow us to understand the appearance of the station at the time Tolstoy was sent to his last way. Here you can see a model of a train from the early 20th century, old photographs, travel items, a telegraph, and a telephone. There are many such museums... In general, the walk around the station seemed more exciting, although it was raining and it was very chilly.
From the station to the estate it is only 4 kilometers, the road is good. Entrance to the manor park is paid. A walk around the estate without visiting the houses costs 50 rubles, a walk with a guide around the estate and houses 250 rubles.
Excursions in Yasnaya Polyana start every half hour, but the system is very strange. First, you go to the window and they give you a card with the time of the excursion, and only then you come up to the time with this card and buy a ticket. While you wait, you have the opportunity to wander around the souvenir shops, fortunately there are a lot of them.
The tour starts right from the estate gates. We came across a guide, towards whom I initially had a feeling of incompetence, but then I realized that the person knows a lot, is in a hurry to tell, is worried, stutters a little and is embarrassed because of this.
The excursion is long, the children can’t stand it. There were three children with us in the group, probably 5, 7 and 10 years old, all three were very tired towards the end, and it was obvious.
I liked the estate, but I still had one unanswered question: where did such a huge family live? The house, it seemed to me, was very small for such a family. Surface area, ponds, variety of plantings, beautiful views from the windows, paths running in all directions and the feeling that you are about to see a living Tolstoy - this is probably how I can describe the estate. I really want to come back here in the spring, because I think that all those gardens that are located on the estate bloom unusually and smell the same.
Avenue.
Tolstoy was very fond of this alley of birch trees. He loved the sound of the wheels of carriages approaching the house and loved one of the ponds along the avenue, where he said he was thinking well.

How to get there, where it is:
How to get to the Yasnaya Polyana Estate Museum?
It’s not difficult to go to Tula, but you definitely need to visit.
By car you can get to Yasnaya Polyana via M2. From Moscow to the estate it is only 200 kilometers - a 3-hour drive.
Directions from Moscow.
On your own - by train from Kursk station on the Lastochka train Moscow-Kursk takes only 2 hours. Train 737 runs daily. Departure from Moscow at 08:30, arrival in Tula at 10:38 - 10:40. Fare - from 363 to
534 rub. You can buy a ticket on the website Lastochka-poezd.ru
If you are short on time and the trip is a one-day trip, then it makes sense to immediately take a taxi from the train station to the estate (450 rubles).

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy is a writer, without whose work it is impossible to imagine world literature. Today any fan recognized genius can visit the place where he was born and lived most of his life. The Tolstoy family estate "Yasnaya Polyana" is located in the Tula region. The ancient estate has preserved its 1910 furnishings and is open memorial museum great writer.

History of Yasnaya Polyana

IN historical documents The first mention of the estate, located 14 km from the modern borders of the city of Tula, dates back to 1652. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the estate became the property of the Volkonsky family - ancestors famous writer on the maternal side. Several generations of bearers of the princely family were diligently engaged in the improvement of the estate. It was under the Volkonskys that gardens were laid out on the territory of Yasnaya Polyana, ponds were dug, and many architectural buildings were erected.

In 1828, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born on the family estate. Local nature and measured provincial life with early years inspired the future writer. The Tolstoy estate Yasnaya Polyana is the place where Lev Nikolaevich lived for about 50 years of his life. He never hid his love for the estate and often mentioned native place in his works.

Life of L.N. Tolstoy on the family estate

The oldest building of modern Yasnaya Polyana is Volkonsky's house. During the time of Lev Nikolaevich, this building (formerly the main manor house) was used for economic purposes. Tolstoy’s family rebuilt one of the outbuildings for their own residence. Barsky is relatively small in area, but at the same time incredibly cozy. Inside, it is distinguished by simple decoration, and the main value of it is the extensive library of Lev Nikolaevich.

During his lifetime, Tolstoy became famous not only for his intelligence and talent, but also for his incredible love of humanity. A school for peasant children was opened at the estate. Tolstoy's estate "Yasnaya Polyana" is unique place where the owner was close to to the common people, like no one else. Leo Tolstoy died in 1910. In his will, the writer indicated that he should be buried without any honors in the forest on the edge of a ravine. Last will Lev Nikolaevich was performed.

Yasnaya Polyana during the Great Patriotic War

After the death of Lev Nikolaevich, the Tolstoy estate was not plundered, since the peasants from the surrounding villages respected the writer and his family. In 1921, a museum was opened in Yasnaya Polyana. This is largely the merit of Lev Nikolaevich’s daughter Alexandra Lvovna, who became the first director of the memorial and cultural center. Despite its state status, the museum has always been occupied directly by the descendants of the great writer.

At the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, a significant part of the exhibits was evacuated to Tomsk. The ancient estate was occupied by enemy troops for 45 days. The Nazis caused significant damage to the museum, kidnapped and damaged many antiques. Restoration work began immediately after liberation. What is noteworthy is that the Tolstoy museum-estate was opened before the end of the war, already in 1942.

Modern history of the museum

In 1986, Yasnaya Polyana received the status of a State Memorial Museum Reserve. In the house of L.N. Tolstoy, the furnishings of 1910 have been preserved and many authentic personal belongings of the writer and his loved ones are on display. Museum collection included in the UNESCO Memory of the World register. Today Yasnaya Polyana is a place popular among tourists from all over the world.

During your visit museum complex You can walk around the landscaped grounds of the estate and visit Tolstoy’s house and Volkonsky’s house. Yasnaya Polyana regularly hosts various exhibitions, festivals, holidays festivities and other events. Many newlyweds from Tula and the region come here for a wedding photo shoot.

What Tolstoy's estate museum looks like: photo and description of the main house

The main and most interesting building of Yasnaya Polyana is the house-museum of L.N. Tolstoy. The interior furnishings fully correspond to the time when the writer and his family lived here. The estate is decorated atypically for its period; inside guests will find a minimal amount of luxury items. In most rooms, the walls are light, monochromatic, and the furniture has simple shapes. The pride of the museum (and once the owner of the house) is the writer’s luxurious library. In addition to working and reception rooms, museum visitors will see the living rooms of Lev Nikolaevich and members of his family.

and sights of the estate

L. Tolstoy's estate "Yasnaya Polyana" is a whole complex of historical buildings surrounded by a picturesque park. Volkonsky's house today is the main administrative building of the museum. In one part of it there are excursions for tourists. The Kuzminsky outbuilding was once a school building, and later turned into a guest house. Today it houses temporary exhibitions.

More than a century after the death of its famous owner, Yasnaya Polyana continues to live as usual. On the territory of the museum complex, greenhouses and ancient stables have been preserved and are functioning, next to which there is a coach house building. Other outbuildings look no less atmospheric: the coachman's, carpenter's, forge, granary, barn and garden house. Birch bridges, the writer's favorite bench, and a bathhouse complement the park landscapes favorably. Preserved in historical estate grave famous writer. For the convenience of tourists, the park has signs to all local attractions.

Museum opening hours and excursion prices

Excursions around the territory of Yasnaya Polyana with visits to museums are held daily (except Monday and Tuesday) from 10.00 to 15.30. The ticket price is 200-300 rubles, depending on the chosen program. For those who want to just take a walk around the territory of the historical park, entrance costs about 50 rubles. Tickets of all types are sold at the ticket office at the entrance. The walking time is unlimited, which is especially nice - you can take pictures in the manor park for free.

The situation is completely different when visiting indoor exhibitions. The Tolstoy Estate Museum, photos of which are presented in the article, stores many exhibits. Tourists should take photos inside writers' house and Volkonsky's house is not allowed. It is also prohibited to touch most of the exhibits with your hands. Despite these rules, the Tolstoy estate is a great place to visit. Visit this unique museum It will be interesting not only to fans of Lev Nikolaevich’s work, but also to everyone who loves picturesque natural places.