On July 11, 2025, the Yasnaya Polyana Museum-Estate opened the exhibition Leo Tolstoy. Master and Man in a new exhibition space. For the first time in over a century of the museum’s history, the memorial Threshing Barn has become an exhibition venue.
Yasnaya Polyana has always had many wooden farm buildings. In Tolstoy’s time, according to peasants’ memories, the Threshing Barn was used to store hay and straw and possibly to thresh grain. The writer even used this building as a backdrop for Levin’s reflections in Anna Karenina.
The new exhibition reflects the history of the estate’s development, Tolstoy’s farming activities, and his family’s involvement in peasant labor.
“My father’s love of the land and respect for manual labor were not only principled but organic,” wrote Tatyana Tolstaya. “Before his so-called transformation, Father was passionately involved in managing the estate, improving every area as best he could. He was always close to peasant work and often participated in it.”
The exhibition includes four thematic sections:
Visitors can learn about Yasnaya Polyana’s agricultural history through photos, illustrations, and archival documents such as estate maps, descriptions, and legal papers.
Also on display are items representing the estate manager’s work: wooden abacus, currency, early 20th-century coins, and a writing desk for storing documents, bills, and letters.
A special feature of the exhibition is archaeological artifacts from the 17th–19th centuries, discovered on the estate: crosses, coins, rings, ceramic and tile fragments.
Yasnaya Polyana has always had many wooden farm buildings. In Tolstoy’s time, according to peasants’ memories, the Threshing Barn was used to store hay and straw and possibly to thresh grain. The writer even used this building as a backdrop for Levin’s reflections in Anna Karenina.
The new exhibition reflects the history of the estate’s development, Tolstoy’s farming activities, and his family’s involvement in peasant labor.
“My father’s love of the land and respect for manual labor were not only principled but organic,” wrote Tatyana Tolstaya. “Before his so-called transformation, Father was passionately involved in managing the estate, improving every area as best he could. He was always close to peasant work and often participated in it.”
The exhibition includes four thematic sections:
- “Inherited from my ancestors”
- “Master and Man”
- “The world of the Russian village and its reflection in Tolstoy’s works”
- “Sophia Tolstaya’s estate management”
Visitors can learn about Yasnaya Polyana’s agricultural history through photos, illustrations, and archival documents such as estate maps, descriptions, and legal papers.
Also on display are items representing the estate manager’s work: wooden abacus, currency, early 20th-century coins, and a writing desk for storing documents, bills, and letters.
A special feature of the exhibition is archaeological artifacts from the 17th–19th centuries, discovered on the estate: crosses, coins, rings, ceramic and tile fragments.