Leo Tolstoy’s Museum-estate “Yasnaya Polyana”
Yasnaya Polyana is the family estate of Counts Tolstoy, located half an hour’s drive southwest of Tula. In its modern boundaries it was laid out by the maternal grandfather of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy. Thanks to the selfless labor of the writer’s wife and children, the architectural ensemble and garden and park areas have survived intact. Today Yasnaya Polyana is a popular tourist attraction, including a museum, cultural center and hotel complex, which is visited monthly by more than ten thousand people from Russia and foreign countries.
Video: Yasnaya Polyana
Contents- History of the Yasnaya Polyana estate
- Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana
- History of the museum
- Yasnaya Polyana Museum Complex
- Green areas of the reserve
- Yasnaya Polyana branch in Krapivna
- Festivals in Yasnaya Polyana
Tourist information - Where to stay
- Shopping in Yasnaya Polyana
- How to get there
History of the Yasnaya Polyana estate
The first mention of the village of Yasnaya Polyana in written sources appeared in 1652, soon a lord’s house was built in its vicinity. The Volkonsky family acquired the land in 1763, and the development of the territory was started by the son of the first owner Nikolai Sergeevich, the grandfather of Leo Tolstoy. Under him, a bar manor with wings, a greenhouse and parks were built. Of the former buildings remained only the Volkonsky House, which is now used in Yasnaya Polyana as a library and administrative building.
.
Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana
Maria Volkonskaya, who inherited a rich estate from her father, married Count Nikolai Tolstoy. It was in the estate in 1828 that the future writer, the fourth son in the family, was born. Two years later, Maria Tolstoy died, at the age of 9, Leo lost his father. Together with his aunt, who cared for him, he moved to Kazan, and returned to accept the inheritance only in 1847. The first attempts to reform the household failed, and the disappointed count entered the military service. He moved to the estate in the late 50s and lived there with rare interruptions until the end of his days. Leo Tolstoy planted several apple and pear orchards and forests that protected Yasnaya Polyana from the approaching ravines. On the edge of one of these forests, the Old Zakaz, he is buried in a simple, green hill-like grave without a monument or cross.
.
History of the museum
After Leo Tolstoy’s death, the estate was managed by his widow, Sophia Andreyevna, and sons. The peasants saved the estate from destruction during the Civil War; in 1921, Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya, the writer’s youngest daughter, succeeded in nationalizing Yasnaya Polyana and turning it into a museum and became its first director. Soon she emigrated, but Tolstoy’s descendants did not leave the estate with their care. In 1994, Vladimir Tolstoy became the director and turned Yasnaya Polyana into an international cultural center, where all family representatives from Russia and foreign countries gather every two years.
.Yasnaya Polyana Museum Complex
The reserve consists of an estate ensemble, a garden and park area and a forestry. The buildings and a significant part of the museum’s exposition have been preserved from Tolstoy’s times. These are photographs, first editions of the writer’s works, old furniture that belonged to his father, his own boots and cartouche. The miniature outbuilding of the Kuzminskys, named after their younger sister Sophia Andreyevna, was given to a school for village children in Tolstoy’s time. Now art objects are exhibited in it. Because of complicated relations with the Orthodox Church, Leo Tolstoy could not be laid to rest in the family crypt at the Nikolskaya Church. His parents, brother, wife, children who died at an early age are buried in the Kochakovsky necropolis.
.
Green areas of the reserve
The fruit and forest plantations of Yasnaya Polyana were reconstructed for natural reasons: new trees were planted to replace the old ones, keeping the same species composition. In the Lower English Park they restored the cascade of three ponds, the pavilion-tower, where the writer’s mother used to spend her time.
.
Yasnaya Polyana branch in Krapivna
Half an hour’s drive west of the museum complex, in Krapivna, a branch of the Yasnaya Polyana Reserve is operating. In the cozy mansion of the Saburovs, household items, arts and crafts are exhibited. In early June in Krapivna is held folklore festival.
.Festivals in Yasnaya Polyana
In July 2016, Yasnaya Polyana hosted the last of the planned seven international festivals “Garden of Geniuses”, dedicated to the works of outstanding European writers – Hugo, Joyce, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Goethe, and Dante. Since 2017, the festival life of the reserve will move to a new format, the details of the project will be known in the summer.
.The annual Nettle Festival in Krapivna attracts lovers of folk and jazz music. Participants attend craftsmen’s master classes, taste nettle dishes, hold rousing fights with stinging brooms instead of weapons.
.
Tourist Information
The Yasnaya Polyana Reserve is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the high season, lasting from April through October, and from November through March until 6 p.m., with entrance to the estate limited to one hour before closing time. The buildings are available from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., an hour longer in high season for organized guided tours only. Free tourists gather in groups of up to 15 people, buying tickets at the ticket office. The cost of visiting ranges from 130 to 250 rubles depending on the program, just walk around the park can be for 50 rubles. A ticket to the Krapivensky branch costs 50-100 rubles.
.Where to stay
The standard tour package allows you to familiarize yourself with the exposition within one day, but those who want to stay at the estate longer can stay at the Yasnaya Polyana Hotel, a 15-minute walk from the main gate. Two buildings – old 5-storey and new 2-storey – can accommodate 53 people at a time. There is a restaurant “Noble Manor”, where dishes according to Tolstoy’s wife’s recipes are cooked, and a cafe in the main building. You can also have a snack in the cafe “Preshpekt” near the entrance towers. The guests of the “Noble Manor” will be offered not only walking tours of Tolstoy’s places, but also horseback riding and Russian language courses.
.
Shopping in Yasnaya Polyana
There is a souvenir shop near the entrance towers, featuring Tula handicrafts made of birch bark, leather, clay, and lavishly published books by and about Tolstoy. A branch of the shop is also open in the hotel. In Krapivna, the traditional set of Tula souvenirs is supplemented with healing insoles and elbow pads made of nettle fibers, which relieve arthritis and rheumatism.
.
How to get there
Tourists arrive in Tula from Moscow by train or bus, then transfer to local bus routes #114, 117, 280, which drop off passengers within a 10-minute walk from the entrance towers of Yasnaya Polyana. The firm train from Tula is temporarily out of service due to financial difficulties. There are buses to Krapivna from Tula from the bus station.
.
