Tea with Tolstoy.

Last weekend we went to see the house of Tolstoy. He married a girl sixteen years younger than him! Dirty old man, remember they had no TV or radio in those days, so entertainment was self made, sex was an easy and fun way to pass the time. They had thirteen kids, five died tragically in their childhood. His house (or should I say houses), are in a region called "Tula" on a big estate. Its about 3 hours slow driving from Moscow. You drive along a bumpy highway to get there and the signs to his place are not so good. I went with my wife and her friend plus my screaming child, so I had two women telling me which way to go plus my friendly satellite navigation "Bart Simpson" giving me the wrong instructions. My windscreen washer was frozen despite the fact that I put - 30 anti freeze in the window tank, so I had to keep stopping to clean the widow of muddy snow every thirty minutes. I must have been cheated when I bought the product from my favorite shop here called "Auchan" (see other post). By the time I parked the car, having driven up the old snow covered road to Tolstoy's place, I felt a total nervous wreck and just wanted to lie down in a dark quiet place to be alone.

The house must have been grand and luxurious in its day, now it looks a bit old and smells of dust and damp. You wait outside and they slowly allow small groups inside the house. They give you strange shoe cover slippers to put over your shoes to walk around the house. They don't like crying kids and the guide angrily asked me and junior to leave the tour. I don't think Russia is very child friendly, but Russians do like children which seems strange and in conflict with their thought for them at tourist and restaurant businesses establishments.

Tolstoy's house, is as if the cleaner had just been and he had popped out to write another epic book in his garden. Everything is as he left it. He seemed to have been a small man or maybe he shrank in his old age? His bed looked tiny, you can also see his writing desk, I think he wrote most of his books by hand there was no Windows Vista in those days or whitener correction fluid. Not surprisingly, It took him five years to write "War and Peace" He wrote many books. I have not read any of them, I am ashamed to say "War and Peace" would not make fun holiday reading for me and I would only use the book as a door stop or table leg prop. I think if you have read Tolstoy, if you are fan and like his books, then his place will be interesting to you but for me it was rather boring and certainly not worth a three hour drive over bumpy Russian roads.

Tolstoy: A Biography