Photo: museums and exhibitions, Yasnaya Polyana Museum-Estate, Tula

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Yasnaya Polyana Museum-Estate - the main place in the life of Leo Tolstoy

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One of the most significant of the Russian writers Leo Tolstoy was born and spent more than 50 years of his life in the Yasnaya Polyana estate, which is located 14 kilometers far from Tula. Here he created his main novels "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" and here he found the last shelter. Yasnaya Polyana is the place where the atmosphere, in which the writer lived and worked, is most fully preserved.

The Yasnaya Polyana Museum Estate is the main point of attraction in the vicinity of Tula. There are several buildings on the territory of the manor, the main of which is Tolstoy’s manor house. The atmosphere of 1910, which became the last year for the writer, has been preserved in the house. All the exhibits: furniture, home library and portraits of family members belonged to Tolstoy and his family. The things in the writer's office, including the table of walnut, upholstered in green cloth, at which Tolstoy was writing his novels, has been preserved almost unchanged.The oldest part of the estate is Volkonsky House where, as it is believed, the writer's grandfather lived. Servants used to live in this mansion under Tolstoy; there were also a laundry and a kitchen here, and the writer's daughter used part of the room for an art workshop. Today the administration of the museum is located here.The Kuzminsky wing is the only building in the entire estate that has preserved its original look. There was a school for peasant children here under Tolstoy, and now memorial exhibitions are being held. The outhouse is named after Tatyana Kuzminskaya, the sister of the writer's wife, who often visited her.The farmstead has preserved a number of farm buildings that arose during the writer's lifetime. Some of them are still used for their intended purpose: for example, a stable in which one can order a horse excursion or a ride on horseback, and a greenhouse. Some buildings with their furnishings have been turned into museum exhibits: a smithy, a coachman's, a bathing-house and a garden house.The important objects of Yasnaya Polyana are the birch "preshpekt", that is, the alley leading from the entrance of the estate to the writer's house, his favorite bench and his grave without a cross and a gravestone, as the writer himself wanted to be buried as modestly as possible. Quiet ponds, the rustle of tall trees and gardens, as well as the fields that open behind them, all this allows us to imagine in what environment the great writer lived and worked. There are several cafes near the estate, in the menu of which traditional dishes of the Russian cuisine appear, which along with other recipes, are also cooked by the recipes of the writer's wife Sophia Andreevna.

Yasnaya Polyana Museum-Estate - the main place in the life of Leo Tolstoy

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