Yasnaya Polyana is the country estate where the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy lived, wrote and spent most of his long life. He was born here in 1828 and he was buried here in 1910. It was in Yasnaya Polyana that Tolstoy wrote many of his great novels. Many of Tolstoy's famous contemporaries visited him in Yasnaya Polyana. Writers, composers, painters, political leaders – eminent figures from the arts, social thought, politics and also workers, peasants and students came to see him.

Life on the estate and the beauty of the countryside are reflected in many of his writings. Constant contact with the local peasants was a source of Tolstoy's knowledge of the life of common people. His own life as a thinker and a writer inspires people all over the world with a desire for truth, goodness and justice. In his writings, Leo Tolstoy gave the world a unique picture of Russian life.