Tula: Greatest Russian City? and Yasnaya Polyana

So it’s been kind of forever since I went to Moscow and Tula and promised to post about it (because I know you guys are so desperate to know what Tula is like!). This post was partially written around three months ago, so uh, it may not make that much sense, but I think you will be able to cope with that.

I headed to Tula with Alexi and Dima, who had a Ford Focus (supporting the American car industry!) and who kindly drove the entire time. It took us about four hours to get there because of the awful Moscow traffic, but luckily, the car was basically the funnest place imaginable and we managed to stay entertained. We also got pulled over once, but didn’t even have to pay a bribe. All in all, the greatest success imaginable.

In case you are wondering what Tula is all about, it’s a medium-sized city in the ancient Golden Ring around Moscow, that mainly is famous for samovars, priyaniki (a honey-sweetened dough-lump commonly considered a cookie), proximity to Tolstoy’s estate and manufacturing a large variety of ammunition, guns and missiles. From the information available at our hotel, all these things are visible on the city’s crest!

Alexi and Dima, galavanting in Tula's main square at night.

To my infinite regret, I don’t have any pictures of the city of Tula or Hotel History where we stayed (in the luxury suite, despite the fact that there was a wedding party there). But Tula is a very typical Russian city–many buildings that appear to be built by people who are not construction workers and are falling apart, a strange mall complex, many Orthodox churches, several factories that seem to be placed in the middle of town, depressed looking people waiting for the bus in the middle of nowhere, monuments to many different Soviets, remains of an ancient fortress. Tula also has some monuments to the arms industry and to Tolstoy.

When we got there we ate at a Soviet kitsch restaurant that was totally packed and extremely cheap. Also charmingly (actually charmingly, I’m not being sarcastic this time–sarcasm is anathema to Tula!) featured a BYO policy, in addition to pastry-pockets filled with….cheese? that were really tasty. After dinner we returned to our luxury suite to enjoy the several sets of glassware and multiple televisions that turned on automatically when you entered the room and a shower with so many different functions you might as well have been inside a biohazard decontamination facility. Also, a bidet. Hotel History spares no luxury!

In the morning we are cheese curd pancakes and watched Lady Gaga music videos among the detritus of the bridal party of the night before and then headed to Yasnaya Polyana in the Focus.

No wonder Levin likes nature so much.

Yasnaya Polyana was Tolstoy’s estate. It is (if I remember correctly) where spent some of his childhood, but most famously, where he wrote like all of his major works. Being there early in the morning in December was amazing, not only because the cold fucks with your mind, but because virtually no one else was there.

It will probably not surprise you at all to learn that Tolstoy is revered like a saint in Russia and by people who studied Russian Lit in college. Thus we were prepared for a magical, mystical experience, which the weather and the total lack of tourists provided us. Because it was so cold, the sky was totally clear and the frost from the previous night was blowing around in the air. It actually looked like sparkles flying through the air in the morning sun.

On the porch of Tolstoy's house.

Naturally photography was not permitted in the house, which is one of the tinier ones on the premises. We saw the dining room where he received as guests virtually every important Russian writer or artist. Also his bedroom, where he slept in a comically small bed because he was so disciplined! His library, the office he gave his wife, his daughter’s bedroom. However because Tolstoy was Tolstoy he also used all these rooms to write. So every room would be like, this was once a pantry, then his daughter’s bedroom, but also the room he wrote Anna Karenina in (don’t you kind of feel sorry for the girl? This seems like a very Freudian cocktail of influences, no?). This is his wife’s office, but also where he wrote The Kingdom of God is Within You. This is a hallway, but also where he wrote Family Happiness.

Alexi's feet were too big for the museum shoe-covers.

Geese. Later, they launched an attack on a woman who wanted to pose with them.

This lady, like the geese, seemed dissatisfied with human presence.

Tolstoy is buried on this estate, which adds to its pilgrimage-site ambiance. He stipulated that he be buried in this exact spot, in an unmarked grave. However that didn’t stop him from running away from home and abandoning his family while he was on his death bed!

Unclear if the leafy stuff was his idea.

There is a little fence surrounding this plot, naturally, but as we were leaving two Russian ladies swaddled in fur coats and chatting kind of loudly approached. Then one made a gesture like, check that out, and they stopped talking, stepped over the fence, and walked right up to the grave. Also, isn’t it weird how the leafy stuff makes it look like he was buried above ground? Or I guess entombed above ground?

I felt trepedatious at this point.

On our way out, we walked around on this frozen lake. It was the first frozen body of water I have ever walked on.

Alexi and Dima did not share my trepidation.

Before we left, we ate lunch at a small cafe that serves food prepared according to Tostoy’s wife’s recipes that were apparently his favorites. The olive and potato soup was quite delicious!

There was no free tea at the museum.

Tula is also famous for being the capital of samovars. A samovar is a tea-making contraption that used to be central to Russian culinary life. You heated water with coal and on top, kept a little pot of super-concentrated tea that you diluted with water from the spigot. These aren’t used anymore, because we have electric kettles and tea bags. We went to this museum, however, locate on the town square, and saw many samovars, several of which were made out of materials like sugar or straw that made them unusable. This samovar was unusable because it was the side of a room.

We also had heard that there was a priyaniki museum, which we desperately wanted to see. Unfortunately it was very difficult to find. Eventually we discovered that the problem was that there are several different October streets/boulevards etc. This particularly Soviet problem caused us all to chuckle. After Alexi accosted people at several different bus stops, all of whom seemed positively dumb-founded by his American gregariousness, an old woman claimed she knew where the museum was and she was even going that way, so we should drive her. This we did. It was a little bit odd, but Russians are often telling me that Americans aren’t as nice as Russians because Americans will give you directions while Russians will drop what they’re doing to show you where something is personally. I had never seen that happen, but I guess here I experienced that phenomena. Strangely, whenever I mention to a Russian that we drove a babushka to a priyaniki museum they look at me like I’m crazy.

They really should have kept this giant priyanik in a case.

Having seen some very small priyaniki, and some very large priyaniki and priyaniki in the shape of guns and birds, and priyaniki commemorating important Soviet holidays, and watching a video of how they’re made, we bid farewell to Tula, having enjoyed ourselves beyond thoroughly, taking many cherished memories and packaged priyaniki with us.

Fellow Travelers, with blood-thirsty geese in the background.

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