Leo Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana Yasnaya Polyana

an avenue of birch trees leads gate @ yasnaya polyana tolstoy s house.

leo tolstoy born on september 9, 1828, in house (since demolished) @ yasnaya polyana. parents died when young, , raised there relatives. in 1856, @ age 28, after finished military service, moved house, had been 1 wing of previous mansion, , brought wife there in 1862, when 34.

at time tolstoy lived there, yasnaya polyana estate comprised 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres), on gently sloping hillside dense original forest (the forest of old order) @ upper end, , series of 4 ponds @ different levels. estate had 4 clusters of peasant houses 350 peasants living , working on estate.

tolstoy wrote war , peace @ yasnaya polyana between 1862 , 1869, , wrote anna karenina there between 1873 , 1877. wrote novels in study hand in small handwriting, many additions , deletions , notes, , gave draft wife, made clean copy @ night, tolstoy rewrote next day. each chapter went through 5 or 6 drafts, , recopied war , peace 7 times before finished. drafts saved wife , in rumyantsev museum in moscow.

tolstoy s thirteen children, of whom 4 died in childhood, born @ yasnaya polyana. born on same leather sofa tolstoy himself born, kept in study next writing desk, , still there today.

when living , working @ yasnaya polyana, tolstoy awakened @ 7:00 a.m. (07:00 local time), did physical exercises, , walked in park, before starting writing. during harvest season worked in fields peasants, both physical exercise , make writing peasant life more realistic. visited school peasant children had created in 1 building, told stories children.

tolstoy entertained important russian cultural , artistic figures of time @ yasnaya polyana. guests known have included anton chekhov, turgenev, maxim gorky, painters valentin serov, , ilya repin, many others.