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Christmas in the Tolstoys’ Family

The workers of the youth programs department of the State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve gave a cycle of classes “Christmas in the Tolstoys’ Family” for the schoolchildren of  Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya on the collection materials of the Museum-Estate of L.N. Tolstoy “Yasnaya Polyana”.

The children were interested getting acquainted with “The Table of L.N. Tolstoy’s Ancestors” schemed in 1950 by the writer’s grandson S.M. Tolstoy, then they made their family tree and drew their family coats of arms. After peculiar travelling into the XIX century they “visited” the children of L.N. Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana, whose roles were played by boys and girls who told about Christmas holidays in the writer’s family.

With enthusiasm the children made Christmas tree toys of nuts and foil like those made by Tolstoy’s children, and made clothes for wooden dolls-skeletons, which were presented specially for classes by the museum-workers of Yasnaya Polyana. Just the similar skeletons were bought by Sofiya Andreyevna Tolstaya, the writer’s wife, in Tula. The whole family of the Tolstoys made clothes for them, then on Christmas days they presented the dolls together with gingerbreads and nuts to the village children.

The children of Vyoshenskaya liked the traditions of Yasnaya Polyana: they invented the images of the dolls and were creative in making their clothes entertaining every detail.

The children got interested in the Christmas traditions in the Tolstoys’ family, the life and work of the writer, the customs of “Yasnaya Polyana”.

N. Balkova