More than 100 years ago, a small railway station, then called "Astapovo", became known all over the world .Fame was associated with a sad event: here, in the house of the head of the same station, the great writer Leo Tolstoy died .Here he spent the last week of his life and made his last famous entry in the diary: "... Do what must, and let it be, what will happen ..." .Today the station, like the village and the whole district, renamed after the writer, is a memorial complex with a number of preserved and restored buildings of that time .

Astapovo and Leo Tolstoy

Station "Astapovo" by the time of the arrival of Leo Tolstoy existed for 20 years. It was opened in 1890 as a junction for the lines that went from Smolensk to Saratov and from Yelets to Moscow. Leo Tolstoy was forced to interrupt his trip to Rostov-on-Don in a third-class car secretly leaving Yasnaya Polyana because of a cold. The writer was placed in the house of the station's head, where he died a week later. In 1918, the station and the village of Astapovo were renamed in honor of the writer.

Memorial to the memory of Leo Tolstoy "Astapovo"

Officially, the museum of Leo Tolstoy appeared at the station in 1946 as a branch of the Tolstoy State Museum, although before that it existed on a voluntary basis. In 2010, there was opened a commemorative memorial "Astapovo" and a cultural and educational center named after the writer.

The central place in the former Astapovo is the Memorial Literary Museum located in the house of the head of the station of Ozilin L .N .Tolstoy .The building was built at the end of the 19th century and is a typical example of station buildings of the time where rooms for employees of the railway and the head of the station were allocated .According to the custodians of the museum, the room where Leo Nikolayevich spent his last 7 days, all this time remained virtually untouched .The wall still has a simple iron bed and a table with medicines, next to it - a sofa, a soft armchair and a screen .And on the wall you can see a silhouette from the shadow of Tolstoy's head, made in pencil .In other rooms you can see a literary and documentary exposition: what did the newspapers write during the writer's stay in Astapovo, what letters and telegrams came in .Also on display are his latest photos and documents .In total, the visitors of the museum have six rooms dedicated to different periods of Tolstoy's life and creativity .In a word, fans of Lev Nikolaevich's creativity here will be rather interesting .

Address: Lipetsk region, Lev Tolstoy district, "Leo Tolstoy" railway station