Прогноз погоды... ЖАРА!

So, I've been contemplating the spate of recent news concerning the ongoing heat wave in European Russia. The average daily high in Moscow has been EIGHTEEN DEGREES ABOVE SEASONAL AVERAGES! Multiple days of 100°, with high humidity (for Europe) and not a cloud in the sky. Moscow has broken every record on the books since tsarist times.

Conditions have been gravely worsened by pervasive peat fires--Moscow is surrounded by bogs, and peat (apparently) spontaneously ignites when its moisture content is below 40%... right now, it's so dry that the bogs' moisture content is 28%. These fires burn underground and are all but inextinguishable. (We've had some in Florida during droughty years, and they are blacken the skies and smell like burning rubber tires. Unpleasant.)

So there are now underground smudge fires around Moscow, worsening its already serious smog problem. Outside Moscow, gusty winds have fanned firestorms: The peat fires burning underground flare up and ignite the parched grasslands and forests on the surface. Villages in the Nizhny Novgorod region (to the south-east of Moscow, bordering the Tula area, where we're hiking) have been burned to cinders in a very short time. Putin has announced, essentially, "There's nothing anyone can do. You must leave the area."

Clearly, no one in his right mind will walk one hundred and twenty miles in 100° weather with unbreathable air.

I've spent the last three weeks preparing for this trip. Ran 10K a day for more than a month. Spent a fair amount of money on gear. My pack is ready to walk out the door. But discretion is the better part of valor... and I'm no fool.

I'll wait until Moscow forecasts are posted this coming Monday at several sites (weather.com, Accuweather, Wunderground and GISMETEO (Russia's Wunderground)) for the following weekend, August 6-8, during which we'll walk through Moscow oblast and into Tula oblast (Podol'sk to Chekhov, Chekhov to Serpukhov, Serpukhov to Dvorianinovo). I'll add the high temperatures, average them out, and if it's hotter than 90°, I'm canceling my hike. Right now the highs are all in the mid-90s to 100°. There's a cooling trend predicted, but it's later in the week, and likely is due to predictive models returning to historical norms, not to any hard meteorological data.

It's a tough decision, but there are enough variables in the equation that really bad weather all but assures a miserable experience.

I'll reschedule the hike for May, after classes are out. Tolstoy did it in the spring, and so can I.

Stories from the road...

Evgeny Popov accompanied Tolstoy on his 1889 walk. About fifty years later, he offered these reminiscences of the walk:

During my stay in Moscow, in May 1889, I found out that Tolstoy was getting ready to go to Yasnaya Polyana, and he wanted to go there on foot, as he had done several years ago with Kolechka Ge and Dunaev. I suggested he go with me. Lev Nikolvaevich agreed, and we had decided on the day of our departure. On the appointed day [May 2, 1889], I arrived at Khamovniki [Tolstoy’s Moscow residence]. Sophia Andreevna had gotten Tolstoy ready for the road. She gave me instructions on how to take care of Lev Nikolaevich while on the road. We got into the carriage and drove off. The driver took us out of town.[i] He let us out and we set off on foot.

Recounting about this trip, I cannot remember all the details and the order of events. In my mind there are only confused fragments of memories. (It was almost 50 years ago, after all). I will describe it as I remember it. We asked permission to sleep in one hut. Since many pilgrims passed along the Kursk highway, it was common for the residents to let people stay the night. The hostess ushered us in willingly and the started up the samovar. Tolstoy went on the porch and sat down. I stayed in the house, since the entire trip I tried to provide him with time alone as often as possible. It was a beautiful May evening. In a nearby garden the nightingales were rustling. When the owner put the samovar on the table, we crumbled baranki [round, crispy biscuits that look like bagels]. moistened them with boiling water, and when they were steaming, added some milk. It turned out to be a dish that Tolstoy really appreciated. We walked beside the railway line, along a path that ran alongside.

Once we came to three passers-by, apparently tramps [босяки, “barefoot wanderers”], who were kindling a fire and and cooking something. Walking past them, Tolstoy said:

“Greetings, brothers!”

“Your brother’s a dog,” one of them said sullenly. We walked a few steps. Tolstoy stopped, as if he wanted to return to the speaker, but then changed his mind, and we went on.

We went along the road (the highway crossed the railway several times) and down a hill. Lev Nikolayevich, pointing to a village, said:

“When we came here with Kolechka and Dunayev [in 1888], a squealing pig ran out of that yard, all covered in blood. They had slit its throat, but hadn’t finished it off, and it had escaped. It was terrible to look at it, probably most of all because its naked pink body was very similar to human’s.”[ii]

At another point, when the dusk had descended upon us, a woodcock flew straight at us, but when it saw us, it got scared and made a sharp turn and disappeared into the woods. Tolstoy said to me:

"You know it ought to have he flown right up to us and sat on a shoulder. It will be that way someday."

One day it was rainy, the road became difficult, and we set off to spend the night at the estate of a Moscow friend, the merchant Zolotarev. It was a long way before we would reach our resting place, so we had to hurry so as not to caught in the dark. Tolstoy walked quickly with his light tread, and it was hard for me to keep up with him. Turning off the highway and going two kilometers, we finally found the estate. The owners were home and received us, tired and soaked. Having sat for a bit, I felt that I was feverish from exhaustion. They put me to bed and started warming tea. Tolstoy said that the best way to get warm it is to play a piece for four hands, and immediately sat down with the hostess at the piano. Before going to bed I still heard him speaking with the hosts, telling them how to grow red currants. The next day I felt fine, and we went on.

When we passed through Serpukhov, we stopped at the post office. Lev Nikolaevch asked for the letters in his name. (Sophia Andreevna had intended to write him there.) Suddenly everyone in the post office got worked up; the employees and the public all whispered and looked at Tolstoy. I do not understand how Tolstoy could bear all the attention. He wrote a postcard, dropped it off, and we went on.

After five days we reached Tula. We went to the house of the vice-governor Sverbeev, whom Tolstoy knew quite well. We were welcomed, fed and put up in a room where the two sons of the host, marine cadets, usually lived. In the morning when we got up, Tolstoy noticed some huge iron barbells under the bed. He took them and wanted to do some exercises. I was afraid that that at his age [Tolstoy was 61], he would hurt himself, and I protested. He put down the weights, but said:

“Well, you know I have lifted five poods [two-hundred pounds] with one hand.”

From the conversations with Tolstoy during my time with him can recall only two fragments. We were standing on the second floor balcony and looking across the garden to the east. There, at the edge of the garden, stood two pine trees. Tolstoy said: “My brother and I planted those two pines, and we asked ourselves whether they would ever grow to the horizon… And now they are so far above it.” Another time, in a conversation about life after death, he said: “I know that I will live with such exalted beings, ones that we cannot even imagine now.”

[i] . Tolstoy is more precise—he mentions in his diary that they took a carriage ride to Moscow’s toll gate, presumably the Serpukhov Gate—located close to the Tul’skaya Metro station.

[ii] Tolstoy began an essay on vegetarianism, “First Step,” with a vivid description of this scene.

Cool old map of Tula province...

I found this map on a Tula historical society website. (Click on it the map to the left for a larger image, or go to the original site, which has a GINORMOUS map)

I can't find a date for it, but judging by the cartographer (Il'in), I know it was made in the last third of the nineteenth century--so, it accurately depicts the Tula Province in the 1880s, when Tolstoy made his trek.

The highway that Tolstoy walked along is the open line that runs down the left side; the railroad runs to the right. I believe at the time the road was called the Rostovskoe highway (after the town Rostov). But it's not marked on the map so far as I can tell.

Interesting that the track for the electric commuter train (the электричка) that today runs through the region follows the path of the railway from the nineteenth century.

There are now two highways that run between Moscow and Tula--the M2 (an interstate, магистраль) and the Varshаvskoe (Warsaw) highway (Варшавское шоссе). The latter is like an old state highway in the US, running through all the little towns. It looks like the Varshavskoe follows very closely the old road that Tolstoy walked along--which is good to know, since we're taking the Varshavskoe. (It's illegal to walk along M2.)

Bolotov & Dvoryaninovo

One of our stops--night three--is Dvoryaninovo (Дворяни́ново), the ancestral estate of Andrey Bolotov, one of the founders of agronomy and pomology (apple and pear growing). Born in 1738, he spent much of his life at Dvoryaninovo, in the Zaoksksii region of the Tula province. He wrote the first botanical guide in Russian of weeds, medicinal and crop plants--introducing Russians to the Linnean taxonomy (the binomial system, "scientific names"). He popularized practices like crop rotation and cross-breeding.

He was, like many of his contemporaries, someone who dabbled and excelled at many things, including some minor philosophical and dramatic works. Nowadays he's known chiefly as a memoirist: His "Notes" (more formally known as The Life and Adventures of Andrei Bolotov, Described by Himself for His Descendants.") are a rich source of facts and thick descriptions of life in 18th century Russia. I've never read them... Add that to my long list of neglected central works of Russian literature that I need to read but likely never will.

He lived to be almost a hundred.

Coincidentally, my walking companion Tom Newlin has written one of the only books on Bolotov. My friends at the Tolstoy museum at Yasnaya Polyana set up our stay at Bolotov's estate without even knowing about Tom's book. Moreover, I don't think Tom's ever formally visited the estate, so it should be interesting... I'm excited to see the orchards and gardens there.

What did Tolstoy take?

We have a pretty good idea of what Tolstoy took on his first walk, based on accounts left by Anna Seuron, the children's governess and German instructor. Seuron is an invaluable source of details about the Tolstoy household during this time: Tolstoy wasn't making many diary entries, and he had yet to attract the troupe of Boswells that would record his every move from the 1890s until his death. Seuron, however, is pretty unreliable: Her memory for detail is weak, and she had an ax to grind with Sophia Andreevna, as Seuron was also fired as governess for striking one of the children.

The book was published in Berlin, in German--I recently found a translation into Russian. Here's her description, my translation:

In his homemade boots, he decided to set off for his native estate. He prepared for the trip, taking only what was necessary. He put on a linen bag for bread, packed a shirt, two pairs of socks, several handkerchiefs, and some stomach drops (his stomach often bothered him). To that add a little notebook with a pencil tied to it for notes along the way. In such a way, he set off accompanied by three young men, two from aristocratic families and the third, the son of the Russian painter Ge (Gay). The two aristocrats didn't make it. Only the Count and Ge continued on with some privations, begging in the villages and arriving at the estate without a cent. No one recognized the Count there, which made him very happy.

Let me remark on some inaccuracies: According to all other accounts, Tolstoy left with two companions, N.N. Ge and M.A. Stakhovich, not three.

About the boots: In the 1880s Tolstoy began to make his own boots, training with a shoemaker. This hobby became an essential part of his public image--сапожники, shoemakers, are a well-loved bit of Russian lore... (You say "As drunk as a shoemaker" in Russian instead of "As drunk as a lord/skunk/sailor."). This hobby was partly a product of his drive for self-sufficiency and simplicity, but largely, I suspect, simply because Tolstoy loved working with his hands.

Now, according to the account in Sophia Andreevna's My Life, Tolstoy didn't wear boots, but лапти, birch sandals. In this particular regard, I lend credence to Seuron: Lapti were worn during the summer, and Tolstoy left in April. It snowed and rained the whole way to Tula. No way did he have on lapti through the mud and snow.

I'll have to write an blog entry on Tolstoy and shoes... (I actually wrote an article a few years ago on the public fascination with Tolstoy's feet!)

Finally, in the copy of Seuron's book in the library at Yasnaya Polyana, Sophia Andreevna has written "WRONG" under the claim that Tolstoy begged in the villages and arrived home without a cent... I haven't checked the German, but I assume Seuron just means that Tolstoy couch-surfed and Sophia is overreacting.

More mashups

Tolstoy's first long walk...

We're still figuring out where we'll spend the night along the way--we've figured out a couple places. Halfway through the trip, we're staying at Dvoryaninovo, the ancestral estate of Andrey Bolotov. My traveling companion, Tom Newlin, literally wrote the book on Bolotov. I don't think he's ever "officially" visited the estate, so it should be interesting. We're staying in Tula at a place I found on couchsurfing.net. We'll probably stay in hotels in Chekhov and Serpukhov. That leaves only Yasnogorsk to find a berth.

But what did Tolstoy do?

In that day, the last third of the nineteenth century, the roads of European Russia were thronged with stranniki, "wanderers." The were a hodgepodge of pilgrims visiting the shrines (like the Iberian Virgin or the catacombs in Kiev), religious sectarians like Old Believers, retired soldiers who could not return to village life. Add to that crowd the "migrant workers" of the early-industrial (in Russia) age: peasants who worked part-time in the cities.

All these people needed a place to stay, and it was very common in that day to stop at the nearest izba and ask to stay the night. Sort of couchsurfing of the nineteenth century.

And that's is precisely what Tolstoy did.

We have a detailed description of Tolstoy's surfing from Arbuzov, his servant who accompanied him on his first long walk in the spring of 1878, when they visited Optina-Pustyn, a spiritual center of Russia in the nineteenth century. (It was made even more famous by Dostoevsky, who glorified it in Brothers Karamazov--starets Zosima is modeled on Saint Amvrosy.)

Here's my translation of Arbuzov's description of their first night on the road, in the village Selivanovo, which still exists today, about 20 km south-west of Yasnaya Polyana/Tula.

"Let's go into the last hut," said the count. "It's closer to the road."

We approached the house. A mean black dog ran up to us, but did not bite. Hearing the barking, an old woman came out of the house and chased the dog into the courtyard. The old woman was covered with a dirty blue shabby cloth; she was thin, dressed in a blue shirt and а skirt of white coarse linen, barefoot.

"Granny, let us spend the night," the count asked her.
"Father, I am glad to host wanderers [stranniki], but I don't have anywhere to put them. It's hot in the loft, and the flies won't let you sleep. And we don't have beds."

"We don't need a bed," the Count. "Bring us a bundle of straw in the seni*, we'll sleep there. Do you perhaps have a samovar, milk and eggs?"
"I have all that, sir."
"We do not need anything else."
"Well, sir, if you don't mind sleeping in the seni, then you are welcome."

The old lady treated us simply and cordially, and, apparently, liked to host wanderers. At her bidding, we entered the house, dropped our packs. The Count took off his coat and remained in his linen blouse. I asked her to bring out the samovar, a jug of milk and a dozen eggs. [...]

The tea was ready, the eggs were boiled in the samovar. On the table stood a pitcher of milk with cream from the top. The old woman said it was a good milk, milked early that morning. I asked for a mug, took some cream for the Count, then whittled him a little spatula from scrap wood in place of a spoon for the eggs. Everything was ready on the table, and the old woman brought from the cellar a whole loaf of bread and gave us to slice as much as we need.

The Count invited the old woman to drink tea with us at the table, and she was very happy and did not refused, but said: "Drink to your health, but I will probably drink just this one cup. It's nice to warm these old bones."

They started on the tea and eggs. Tolstoy sat on a bench under the icons, me across from him on the bench, the old woman to his left side at the corner of the table. The Count had a glass of tea and went to sit out on the porch to avoid the heat and flies and write in his notebook.

The сени, "seni," is an unheated part of the peasant hut that attached the "front porch" of the hut to the main room. It was essentially the mudroom and shed of the Russian hut--where you took off your boots and stored things you might need. But not really part of the interior of the hut.

Arbuzov mentions that he carried a sheet and pillow in his sack for the Count. Tolstoy slept well. Arbuzov did not. He spent the night watching the swallows who had built a nest in the corner of the seni.

They left early the next morning.

Tolstoy's first blog entry

Tolstoy kept two blogs of sorts during his walk: His diary, and daily letters home to his wife, who sat worrying in Moscow.

Here's his first letter to his wife, posted from Podolsk:

1886 г. Апреля 5. Подолъскъ.

10 часовъ утра, въ Подольскѣ. Ночевали и идемъ здорово

и весело. Стах[овичъ] разбился ногами и подъѣзжаетъ. Жду

письма въ Серпуховѣ. Целую всѣхъ. У насъ ужъ одинъ

постоянный товарищъ - мужичекъ.

Л. Т.

1886. April 5. Podolsk.

It's 10 in the morning in Podol'sk. We spent the night and we're walking well and happily. Stakhovich's legs broke down on him and he's caught a ride [on the train]. I await your letter in Serpukhov. My love to everyone. We already have one constant companion--a peasant chap. L.T. [Tolstoy]

Podol'sk is the first major town south of Moscow on the Simferopol'skoe shosse (Simferopol' Highway, M2, the main highway south out of Moscow), about 40km south of the center of Moscow, maybe 20km south of where Tolstoy started his walk. (We're starting out from Podol'sk, mostly because we don't want to walk the heavily-trafficked area between Moscow and Podolsk--it would be like hiking along 95 from Manhattan to Boston.)

Stakhovich was the son of one of Tolstoy's close friends, and went on to be a teacher, politician, and one of the founders of the Tolstoy Museum in St Petersburg. He was twenty-five in 1886, and made it all of thirty miles before calling it quits. An object lesson for any walker...

The mail ran surprisingly quickly in the Podmoskov'e area of that time--it was carried daily all along the rail from Kursk to Moscow and back. He wrote the letter the morning of the fifth, it was posted on the sixth, and Sophia Andreevna received it that same day (according to the postage stamps). She wrote back on the seventh:

Нескольно слов из Подольска меня совсем не удовлетворили: промонли ли, устали ли, сыты ли, где ночевали, ничего не известно.

A few words from Podol'sk does not satisfy me in the least: Did you get soaked? Are you tired? Are you hungy? Where did you spend the night? I don't know a thing.

During this period, the mid-1880s, Tolstoy picked up his diary after a decade or two of not writing much... He becomes something of a graphomaniac, filling nine volumes of his Complete Collected Works between 1885 and his death. (Keep in mind that each volume is a thousand pages!) I'll publish some more excerpts from his diary of the period next.

Caricature from 1907

These walks that Tolstoy did became part of his legend... A restless man, a man of the people, an adventurer.

Doing research for one of my projects, I found this rotogravure of a photograph taken in 1886...

Our path...

Check out the path we're taking

About the walk...

Leo Tolstoy, “great writer of the Russian land,” author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina and scores of other literary works, prophetic leader of a revolutionary worldwide movement, was a fidget. After a morning cooped up writing, he loved nothing more than a long walk, a ride on his horse, an afternoon hunting.

In early spring of 1886, when he was nearing sixty, Tolstoy decided to walk from his Moscow home to his ancestral estate, Yasnaya Polyana, outside of Tula, a distance of more than two hundred kilometers. “I am walking, mainly, to recuperate from the luxuries of life and perhaps to take part a bit the real life,” he wrote a friend.

He left, without a clear plan, a pack on his back and a couple friends at his side. He spent the nights on the floor of peasant huts, often sleeping with a dozen other travelers. He ate bread and cabbage soup. He gathered material for future stories. “It was, as I’d assumed it would be, one of the best memories of my life,” he wrote his wife upon arriving at Yasnaya Polyana, complaining of “a little tiredness.”

In August 2010, two American professors of Russian literature, Michael Denner (Stetson University) and Thomas Newlin (Oberlin College), will retrace Tolstoy’s journey, arriving at Yasnaya Polyana on August 11to attend a international Tolstoy conference.