Yasnaya Polyana (Clear Glade) Leo Tolstoy Day Tour

Yasnaya Polyana (Clear Glade) Leo Tolstoy Day Tour

Everything on the estate, situated in a pastoral setting of birch forests and orchards, has been preserved as he left it – his living room (Tolstoy was born on the leather sofa), library (with 22,000 volumes), and parlor (where his wife Sofya Andreyevna meticulously copied his manuscripts). On the Persian walnut desk in the study, Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina, War and Peace (which Sofia recopied by hand nine times, when not busy bearing his 13 children!) and chapters of The Resurrection. Today the manor house functions as the Tolstoy House Museum. The writer also opened a school for local peasant children, and this now houses the Literary Museum.

Tolstoy also developed a philosophy of Christianity so potent that the Russian Church excommunicated him. Tolstoy wrote: “It is difficult for me to imagine Russian without my Yasnaya Polyana”. The great writer died in the station master’s hut on November 7; his last words were said to be: “To seek, always to seek”.

Itinerary
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Stop At: Museum-estate of Leo Tolstoy, Oktyabrskaya Str., 14, Yasnaya Polyana 300002 Russia

The town lies some 220 kilometers (125 miles) south of Moscow (about a three – hour drive). The Great Russian writer, Count Lev (Leo) Nikolayevich Tolstoy, was born in Yasnaya Polyana (Clear Glade) on August 28, 1828, and lived and worked here for over 60 years; he inherited the property in 1847. The 445 – hectare (1,100 – acre) Yasnaya Polyana was the main source of creative inspiration for Tolstoy, and the location is reflected in many of his works.

Duration: 3 hours