Yasnaya Polyana Home of Leo Tolstoy

As the Yorkshire surroundings of Emily Bronte's birthplace influenced Wuthering Heights, and Charlotte Bronte's hardships at a stern high school fed her with the image of Lowood in Jane Eyre, so too Tolstoy's oeuvre fed on the characters and landscape of his estate. The writer said, I cannot imagine Russia, or my relationship to her, without Yasnaya Polyana.

Yasnaya Polyana (which means Beautiful Meadow in English) was where Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828 into the landowning gentry of pre-revolutionary Russia. It is more estate than house; a two-storied structure made of stone, conceiv...