How to spend the autumn vacation 2017 profitably

1. The Big Boldino

Photo:Alexey Kotlov / Photobank "Lori" Nizhny Novgorod region, 490 km along the Gorky highway. Working hours: Tuesday - Sunday from 9:00 to 17:00, Monday - day off. Price: a tour of the house-museum and estate lasts 1.5 hours (adult ticket - 300 rubles, for schoolchildren, students and pensioners - 200 rubles, preschoolers - free). The family estate of Alexander Pushkin is located near the village of Diveyevo in the Nizhny Novgorod region. It was here in the autumn months of 1830 and 1833 that the poet experienced the highest creative peak in his life, writing "Little Tragedies", "Belkin's Tales", "The House in Kolomna", the last chapters of "Eugene Onegin", "The Bronze Horseman", "The Queen of Spades", fairy tales and lyric poems. The spirit of that era is alive here to this day: the manor house and the estate park with a system of cascading ponds have been preserved in their original form, and the furnishings of the rooms where the poet lived have been recreated on a documentary basis. Visitors to the estate can also take pictures in costumes from Pushkin's era and ride a phaeton. A few kilometers from the manor house is the Luchinnik grove - the poet's favorite place for horseback riding. A spring with clean spring water has been preserved here, which the great poet loved to refresh himself with in the summer heat. It is better to come to Boldino in the fall, when flying cobwebs and fiery foliage of the trees recreate the atmosphere of the famous poetic era. If you wish, you can stay at the hotel of the same name, located within walking distance of the A.S. Pushkin Museum-Estate. Price - from 850 to 4500 rubles, depending on the room.

2. Konstantinovo

Photo:UNA / Photobank Lori Ryazan region, 196 km along the Ryazan highway. Opening hours: Tuesday - Sunday from 10:00 to 18:00, Monday - day off. Prices: single entrance ticket for 5 exhibitions - for adults on weekdays 300 rubles, weekends and holidays - 350 rubles, for children under 16 - free. The birthplace of the "last poet of the village" Sergei Yesenin is located on the high bank of the Oka, from where there is a breathtaking view. In the center of the village is the modest "estate" of the Yesenins, a low village hut. It has preserved a stove, peasant utensils, a wooden bed with a patchwork quilt, the famous "old shushun" of the poet's mother, and family photographs on the walls. From the window of the house you can see the ancient Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. Also on the territory of the museum-reserve there is the school where Sergei studied, the house of the priest Smirnov (he married the poet's parents and baptized him), the mansion of Lydia Kashina (Yesenin was friends with her, she became the prototype of the heroine in the poem "Anna Snegina"), a literary museum in memory of the poet. In the local "Tea House" you will be treated to a peasant dinner of the early 20th century and "treats of Grandma Tanya", Yesenin's mother. You can spend the night right there, in the guest house. On weekdays (from 12:00 Mon to 12:00 Fri) accommodation for one person in a double room costs 600 rubles / day, on weekends (from 12:00 Fri to 12:00 Mon) - 800 rubles / day.

3. Melihovo

Photo:Dmitry Neumoin / Photobank "Lori" Moscow region, 55 km along the Simferopol highway. Opening hours: Tuesday - Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00, Monday - day off. Prices: 1.5-hour tour of the estate - for adults 200 rubles (May - September), 160 rubles (October - April); for schoolchildren - 165 rubles / 125 rubles; for children under 7 - free. Anton Chekhov bought Melikhovo in 1892 through an ad in a newspaper for 13 thousand rubles. And in 1899, his tuberculosis worsened, and he was forced to sell his beloved estate and move to Yalta. In Melikhovo, the writer created 42 works: the plays The Seagull and Uncle Vanya, the stories The Man in a Case, Ionych, The House with a Mezzanine, My Life, Gooseberries, About Love, the story Ward No. 6, the essay Sakhalin Island, etc. Here he also practiced medicine – as a zemstvo doctor, he received peasants from neighboring villages for free. Now the museum-reserve includes the Chekhovs' manor house, the exposition of the medical center "Ambulatoriya", an old park and garden (at one time the writer was very enthusiastic about improving the estate: planting trees, growing vegetables), the pond "Aquarium", the vegetable garden "South of France", and the outbuilding-kitchen. The two schools built by the writer and the outbuilding where he preferred to work have been preserved. Interactive classes and literary master classes are held for children in Melikhovo, and every Saturday from 12 to 15 o'clock they show performances of the local theater "Chekhov Studio". There is a cafe on the estate grounds where you can have a snack. And next to it is a guest house, a double room costs 2000 rubles per day.

4. Spasskoe-Lutovinovo

Photo:Sergey Chayko / Photobank "Lori"Oryol region, 310 km along the Simferopol highway.Opening hours: daily from 9:00 to 18:00.Prices: ticket to the territory - 80 rubles, for children under 16 - free; tour of the estate and exhibition center (or literary exposition): adults - 360 rubles, students - 250 rubles, preschoolers - free. "Spasskoye-Lutovinovo" is the only memorial museum of Ivan Turgenev in Russia. The family estate of the writer's mother Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova in the Oryol province was presented to her family in the 16th century by Tsar Ivan the Terrible. On the territory there is the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior (founded in 1779), an outbuilding and an ancient park, laid out here at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. Turgenev described this park with its cozy gazebos, linden alleys, mighty poplars, oaks, and firs in his works "Rudin", "A Nest of Gentry", "Faust", "Fathers and Sons", "On the Eve", "Ghosts", and "Nov". Schoolchildren can take part in intellectual quizzes on their knowledge of the writer's biography and work. After a tour of the estate, you can refresh yourself with pies in the museum cafeteria and drink a milkshake with ice cream.

5. Yasnaya Polyana

Photo:Igor Nizov / Photobank "Lori"Tula region, 200 km along the Simferopol highway.Opening hours: you can walk on the estate grounds until 21:00 (from April to October); visiting memorial buildings: Tue-Fri - 9:30-15:30; Sat, Sun - 9:30-16:30; Monday - closed.Prices: ticket with a tour (estate, house, outbuilding) on weekdays for adults - 350 rubles, for schoolchildren - 300 rubles; on weekends and holidays - 400 rubles for everyone.Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born, raised and lived for over 50 years in Yasnaya Polyana. This was the family nest of the Tolstoy family and his favorite home. And the writer's descendants still come here once a year - there are more than 250 of them and they live in different countries of the world. In Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy wrote about 200 works, including Anna Karenina, War and Peace (he worked on the epic novel for 10 years), and Resurrection. The size of the reserve is impressive - 412 hectares. A wide birch alley leads to the house-museum - it is called "Preshpekt" in the old days, the writer loved to walk along it. He laid out orchards on the estate: apple, plum, cherry. Now they collect a large harvest of apples here. The estate is alive: there is an apiary, a stable (you can take children for a ride on a horse), a poultry yard with chickens, ducks and geese. The house-museum has preserved the furnishings of 1910 - the last year in the writer's life. All the things, paintings, books (there are more than 22,000 copies in the library) belonged to Tolstoy and his ancestors. The writer is buried here, in the forest, on the edge of a ravine. In the café "Preshpekt" (at the entrance to the estate) you will be offered dishes prepared according to the recipes of Tolstoy's wife Sofia Andreyevna. The Ankov apple pie is in great demand - the family's holiday dessert. You can stay at the Yasnaya Polyana Hotel, 1.5 km from the museum. A double room (parents and a child) costs from 4,000 rubles. Also interesting: