Yasnaya Polyana Museum-Estate
Leo Tolstoy's preserved white manor house, birch alleys, apple orchards and forest grave
Maintained with Tolstoy's original study, ten-thousand-volume library and walking paths.
Tula & Yasnaya Polyana, Russia
Ideal: 1–2 daysBest: May–SepPrice: Moderate
In 60 seconds
Tula & Yasnaya Polyana in 60 seconds
Two hundred kilometres south of Moscow along the Upa River, Tula pairs its regular sixteenth-century nine-towered Kremlin and revitalised Kazanskaya Embankment with centuries-old workshops producing brass samovars and wooden-mould honey pryaniki. Fourteen kilometres south lies Yasnaya Polyana, the 400-hectare country estate where Leo Tolstoy was born, wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and lies buried beneath an unmarked mound in the Old Zakaz forest.
Best for
- Culture
- History
- Fortress
- Gingerbread
- Tea
Known for
- Yasnaya Polyana Museum-Estate
- Tula Kremlin & Kazanskaya Embankment
- Tula Samovars & Tula Gingerbread Museums
Skip if
You want dramatic mountain or coastal scenery rather than a literary estate and craft city.
Your match
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See
Must experience
The things that would make the trip incomplete without them.
Tula Kremlin & Kazanskaya Embankment
1514–1520 quadrangular brick fortress with Ghibelline swallowtail merlons
Backed by a modern riverside park along the old Upa channel.
Tula Samovars & Tula Gingerbread Museums
Collections of eighteenth-to-twentieth-century samovars and carved wooden pryanik moulds
Introduce the city's dual tea-table craft traditions.
Beyond the obvious
Hidden gems
Less obvious, rarely queued for, and usually the part people remember.
Kozlova Zaseka Railway Station
Restored nineteenth-century wooden station serving Yasnaya Polyana
Includes an exhibition on late-imperial rail travel and Tolstoy's journeys.