Tolstoy Memorial Museum (Muzey Tolstovo)

Tolstoy Memorial Museum (Muzey Tolstovo) Review

Architect Afanasy Grigoriev designed this mansion, a fine example of the Moscow Empire style (1822-24). The minor poet Lopukhin, a distant relative of Tolstoy's, lived here, and the mansion was converted into a museum in 1920. The exhibit halls contain a rich collection of manuscripts and photographs of Tolstoy and his family, as well as pictures and paintings of Tolstoy's Moscow. Even if you don't know Russian, you can learn about the writer's life through the photographs, and in each room there's a typed handout in English to help explain its holdings. Note the picture of 19th-century Moscow in the second hall (on the left-hand wall). The huge cathedral taking up more than half the photograph is the Cathedral of Christ Our Savior—the original 19th-century structure that was torn down and subsequently re-created.