Tolstoy continuously took notes about Yasnaya Polyana’s inhabitants. Tolstoy fathered an illegitimate child during his youth, a model surely, for the hero of the novel Pierre Bezukhov (the illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov). War and Peace brims with characters from his family: his wife’s sister Tanya sparked the character Natasha Rostov, the heroine and life-force behind the novel his ancestral family Volkonsky became Bolkonsky Prince Andrei was engendered by Sergei, Tolstoy’s aristocratic brother. Even as a child, Tolstoy wept when a stable boy was beaten. The ability to don another’s emotional and psychological mantle was intrinsic to the credibility of his writing. Tolstoy’s novels, short stories and novella illustrate how deeply and precisely he had paid attention to the environment, people’s emotions and characteristics. During this period, Tolstoy began his literary career, publishing the autobiographical trilogy Childhood (1852), Boyhood (1854) and Youth (1857). In 1855, Tolstoy’s predilection toward gambling (shtoss, an old-fashioned card game), cost him the center section of his estate, which had to be sold, transferred and built on another site. During Tolstoy’s lifetime, it became a magnet for people who wanted to see the writer, ask for his advice, and sometimes ask for money. About 250,000 people visit the site per year. Today Yasnaya Polyana is a national shrine. This is where the Tolstoy family would congregate each evening for discussion. One of the more significant rooms was the zala (dining and living room) which housed a corner for serious talk. Rooms were immaculately furnished and maintained. A long avenue skirted by birch trees leads up to the estate that accommodates several rooms including Tolstoy’s bedroom and study. It is more estate than house a two-storied structure made of stone, conceived by Tolstoy’s grandfather, Count Volkonsky. Yasnaya Polyana (which means Beautiful Meadow in English) was where Tolstoy was born on Auginto the landowning gentry of pre-revolutionary Russia. The writer said, I cannot imagine Russia, or my relationship to her, without Yasnaya Polyana. As the Yorkshire surroundings of Emily Bronte’s birthplace influenced Wuthering Heights, and Charlotte Bronte’s hardships at a stern high school fed her with the image of Lowood in Jane Eyre, so too Tolstoy’s oeuvre fed on the characters and landscape of his estate.
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