Astapovo Memorial Museum of L. N. Tolstoy

The exhibition of the memorial room –the last refuge of Leo Tolstoy – presents the writer's authentic belongings. Today, the Lev Tolstoy station is not a passenger station; only freight trains pass here, so it is only accessible by road.

The Astapovo railway station – now the Lev Tolstoy village of the Lipetsk region – became world-renowned for a sad reason: the great writer passed away here. According to the surviving testimonies of eyewitnesses, he left his home in Yasnaya Polyana in order to spend his final years honoring his convictions, abandoning worldly life, in silence and solitude. On the way, he caught a cold, and decided to seek help in Astapovo. The head of the station, I.I. Ozolin, provided Tolstoy with the best room in his apartment, where the writer died on November 7 (or November 20, according to the modern calendar), 1910, at 6:05 a.m.

The Astapovo clock was stopped and still shows this time today. Ozolin kept all of the furnishings, down to the tiniest detail, and became the first caretaker of this memorial space on a voluntary basis. Today, the museum complex includes the buildings of the historical station and nearby buildings, restored to their original form, as well as the exact same steam locomotive that brought the writer on his final journey.

Astapovo Memorial Museum of L. N. Tolstoy

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