Tolstoy's Last Journey: Yasnaya Polyana to Astapovo

Tolstoy was born in the manor house at Yasnaya Polyana and wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina there. In the night of 10 November 1910 (28 October by the old calendar) he left it for good, in secret, with only his doctor, Makovitsky. He had no definite plan of action. The estate is now a museum-reserve: it holds his personal effects and a library of 22,000 volumes, and his unadorned grave lies in the park nearby.

Visitor guidance: The Yasnaya Polyana museum-estate is open to visitors, near Tula.

The journey began at a railway halt, not at a grand destination. Tolstoy started his last trip at Shchyokino station, and the same day changed trains at Gorbachevo and reached Belyov, then went on to Kozelsk. He had no plan beyond getting away. That first day was a chain of changes, one train after another, until a hired coachman carried him the last stretch to a monastery gate.

Location precision: The station is named in the account of the journey; the pin comes from a map search for it.

From Kozelsk station Tolstoy hired a coachman and drove to the Optina Monastery. It was a place he knew: he had visited the monastery earlier although he did not approve of the staretsdom, the tradition of spiritual elders that drew Dostoevsky, Gogol and Turgenev here. This time, he did not dare to enter the hermitage (skete).

Visitor guidance: Optina Monastery near Kozelsk is a working monastery; dress modestly and respect services.

The next day Tolstoy went on to Shamordino, a convent founded in 1884 where his sister Maria lived as a nun. He met her there, and his daughter Alexandra later arrived in secret. By 1918 some 800 women lived in the convent and its sketes; the Soviets closed it from 1923 until 1990.

Visitor guidance: Shamordino Convent is an active convent, near Optina; visit respectfully.

On 13 November (31 October by the old calendar) Tolstoy, Makovitsky and Alexandra left Shamordino for Kozelsk and boarded a third-class carriage bound for the south. There was no time to buy tickets; they bought them at Belyov, to Volovo. Companions later said the trip had no fixed destination. They discussed relatives at Novocherkassk, Bulgaria and the Caucasus.

Location precision: The station is named in the account of the journey; the pin comes from a map search for it.

Tolstoy caught a cold on the train; it became pneumonia, and that evening he had to get off at Astapovo. He was given a room in the apartment of the stationmaster, Ivan Ozolin, and died there on 20 November 1910, aged 82. The clocks in the room were stopped at 6.05. The station was renamed Lev Tolstoy in 1918, and a memorial museum opened in Ozolin's former apartment in 1946.

Location precision: The pin marks the settlement of Lev Tolstoy (formerly Astapovo), not the station building itself.

Visitor guidance: The memorial museum is at Lev Tolstoy station in Lipetsk Oblast.