How Leo Tolstoy Bought a Country Estate in Khamovniki
My friend and I were strolling toward the bathhouse. As we walked past this little wooden house, we just couldn’t resist stopping by. We bought a ticket for 500 rubles and went inside to visit Leo Tolstoy.
In the late 19th century, Khamovniki was not a prime residential area, but rather a working-class suburb. In 1882, Leo Tolstoy purchased an estate here. Across the street stood the Giro silk factory, a brewery, and workers’ dormitories.
The great writer’s mornings began with the factory whistles. The house had no electricity, no running water, and no sewer system. Each room had a basin and a jug. He would get up at 5 a.m., stoke the stoves, chop wood, and clean the room. He carried water.
Later, he learned the craft of shoemaking. He made boots and gave them to his friends. He crafted one pair for his son-in-law, Mikhail Sukhotin. The latter placed them on the bookshelf next to the 12-volume collection of Tolstoy’s works and hung a label that read: “Count Tolstoy’s Last Work.”
Here, in a study with low ceilings in the far corner of the house, Tolstoy wrote about a hundred works: “Resurrection,” “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” “The Kreutzer Sonata,” “Father Sergius,” and “The Power of Darkness.” Anton Chekhov, Ilya Repin, Maksim Gorky, Afanasy Fet, Nikolai Ge, Nikolai Leskov, Vasily Surikov, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Next to the house was a magnificent garden covering nearly a hectare. Sofya Andreyevna brought 70 young oak and maple saplings from Yasnaya Polyana. In the winter, the playground near the house turned into an ice rink. Lev Nikolaevich would go out into the garden to skate with the children.
At the end of the 19th century, Tolstoy paid 27,000 rubles for his estate. A factory worker at that time earned 190 rubles a year. In other words, the writer’s house cost 140 annual salaries. In today’s money, that’s about $3 million. The market value of such a plot in the city center today would certainly be more than $30 million.
After the writer’s death in 1910, Sofya Andreyevna preserved the house, and in 1921, a museum was opened there. Today, it houses several thousand authentic family artifacts, as well as an impressive garden that dates back to Tolstoy’s own time.
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