Kuzminsky House

The Kuzminsky House is the former left wing of the architectural ensemble of Yasnaya Polyana. Unlike the Tolstoy House, this house remained unchanged since the time of Prince Volkonsky, and was used for various purposes.
In 1859 Tolstoy opened a school for peasant children here; it worked till 1862. The well-lit rooms on the upper floor were used as classrooms, and on the ground floor there was equipment for gymnastics. The school also had a small natural history museum.
In later years, guests stayed in this house. The most frequent guest who lived here was Tolstoy’s sister-in-law Tatiana Kuzminskaya with her family. Therefore, the house came to be called the Kuzminsky House. Many years later Tatiana remembered the time when she came to Yasnaya Polyana even before her marriage, as a young girl, to visit her sister Sophia: “The next morning we went to see the house where the school was. Upstairs there were light, spacious, high-ceilinged rooms, with a balcony and a beautiful open view. Little did I think at that time that for 25 years I would be coming here almost every summer with my family and staying in this very house.”
Now the Kuzminsky House accommodates museum exhibitions.
Near the house are a root-cellar and a woodshed. Close by, in the Red Orchard, the apiary is located; it appeared here in the last decade of the 19th century. The experienced gardener Soans looked after it. The apiary stills works, and every year it produces a small yield of honey.