Tula (population 480,000; 193 km south of Moscow — approximately 2 hours by express train; the administrative centre of the Tula Oblast in central Russia) is one of the most historically significant provincial cities in Russia, renowned for three things it has produced for centuries: samovars (Tula has manufactured the decorative copper and silver samovar — the traditional Russian hot-water urn — since 1778, when the first recorded Tula samovar factory opened; the Tula samovar has been the standard of samovar quality in Russia for 250 years, and the phrase "taking a samovar to Tula" (везти самовар в Тулу) is the Russian equivalent of "carrying coals to Newcastle"), gingerbread (the Tula pryanik — the traditional Russian printed gingerbread (the dough is imprinted with wooden moulds bearing religious icons, the Tula kremlin or the text "Tula pryanik"; the pryanik has been made in Tula since at least the 17th century and is the most famous regional food product in central Russia), and weapons (the Tula Arms Plant, founded by Peter the Great in 1712, is the oldest and most famous armaments manufacturer in Russia — the factory produced the AK-47's ammunition, the PPSh-41 submachine gun used in World War II, the Mosin-Nagant rifle and many of the most significant weapons in Russian military history). The Tula Kremlin (1514-1520 — one of the best-preserved kremlins in Russia outside Moscow; the red-brick fortress with 9 towers and the Cathedral of the Assumption (1764)) anchors the historic city centre. But the defining cultural landmark of the Tula region is Yasnaya Polyana (12 km south of Tula — the estate where Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828, lived for most of his life, wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and is buried under a simple unmarked mound of earth in the birch forest, as he requested): the most important literary estate in Russia and one of the most visited literary pilgrimage sites in Europe.
Tula Kremlin (founded 1514-1520 by order of Vasily III, Grand Prince of Moscow; one of the best-preserved kremlins in Russia outside the Moscow Kremlin; the construction: the walls (1,066 m in total length) and the 9 towers built in red brick on a limestone foundation (the same red-brick construction technique used for the Moscow Kremlin, reflecting the Italian architects — primarily from Milan — who designed both structures in the 1490s-1520s); the towers (each of the 9 towers has a distinct name and function: the Spassky Tower (the main entrance gate), the Odoevskaya Tower (the northeast angle), the Nabatnaya Tower (the alarm bell tower)); the Cathedral of the Assumption (Uspensky Sobor — 1764; the dominant structure inside the kremlin walls; built in the Baroque style by the merchant Larion Lagutin; the five-domed structure with the blue onion domes; the interior frescoes (18th-19th century)); the Exhibition Hall (the permanent exhibition on the history of the Tula Kremlin and the city of Tula — the defensive role of the kremlin during the Tatar raids of the 16th-17th centuries, the construction history and the architectural details); the kremlin walls (the walkable section of the kremlin wall (the northern section of the wall is open for visitors — the views of the Upa River and the city from the crenellated red-brick battlements)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideTula State Museum of Samovars (the only dedicated samovar museum in the world; located in the merchant house adjacent to the kremlin; the collection of 300+ samovars spanning from the earliest examples (the 1778 samovar — the oldest known Tula samovar in the collection) to the Soviet industrial samovars of the 1970s): the samovar (the word "samovar" (самовар) means "self-boiler" in Russian — the device heats water using an internal chimney tube (the tube runs vertically through the centre of the water vessel; charcoal or pinecones are burned in the tube; the heated tube surrounded by water brings the large quantity of water to a boil without the water extinguishing the fuel); the first samovar factory in Tula was opened in 1778 by the brothers Ivan and Nazar Lisitsyn (former serfs who had earned enough money as crafts workers to establish a factory); by the early 19th century Tula had 28 samovar factories (the total samovar production: 120,000 units/year by 1826); the samovar forms (the barrel (bochonok), the vase (vazikoviy), the acorn (zheludok), the egg (yajtseviy), the turnip (repka) — each shape characteristic of a different period and factory); the imperial samovars (the museum collection includes samovars presented as gifts to the Russian imperial family — the most elaborate pieces with gold, silver and enamel decoration made by the Batashev factory for the Romanovs).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideTula State Arms Museum (the official museum of the Tula Arms Plant, founded by Peter the Great in 1712 as the state arms factory to reduce Russia's dependence on Swedish and Dutch weapons; the museum is housed in the historic factory building (the 1705 building is one of the oldest surviving industrial buildings in Russia)); the collection: the history of the Tula Arms Plant (Peter I visited the Tula factory twice (in 1711 and 1712) and established it as the primary supplier of the Russian Imperial Army; the factory has produced weapons continuously for over 300 years); the key weapons in the collection (the Mosin-Nagant rifle (Model 1891 — the bolt-action rifle used by the Russian Imperial Army from 1891 to 1945 in both World Wars; named for the Tula factory designer Sergei Mosin and the Belgian designer Léon Nagant; over 37 million produced); the PPSh-41 submachine gun (1941-1945 — the weapon of the Soviet infantry in WWII; the 71-round drum magazine, the 900 rpm rate of fire, the 7.62×25 Tokarev cartridge; the PPSh-41 was produced at the Tula factory during the Siege of Tula (October-December 1941 — the Tula garrison defended the city against the Wehrmacht for 45 days while the factory workers manufactured weapons and ammunition during the battle)); the artistic weapons (the Tula tradition of decorative arms: the inlaid firearms presented to tsars, the decorated hunting rifles, the chased pistols).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideTula pryanik experience and traditional Russian dinner: the Tula pryanik (the most famous regional food in central Russia — the traditional Russian printed gingerbread; the dough: a dense spiced dough (the traditional Tula pryanik spice mix includes the cardamom, the clove, the star anise, the vanilla and the cinnamon (the Tula pryanik spice formula was kept secret by each factory through the 17th-19th centuries)); the printing: the wooden moulds (the mouldable carved wooden blocks that imprint designs on the pryanik surface — the designs include the Tula kremlin, the samovar, religious icons, heraldic animals and text in the Old Church Slavonic script); the pryanik museum and workshop at the Tula Confectionery Factory (the visitor centre where the pryanik production process is demonstrated, the traditional moulds are displayed and the fresh pryaniki can be purchased and personalized with a name or message pressed into the dough); the traditional Russian dinner (the Tula restaurant scene: the borshch (the beet soup of Russian cuisine; the Tula borshch traditionally includes the pickled cabbage (kisla kapusta) and the beef rib), the golubtsy (the stuffed cabbage rolls with minced meat and rice in tomato sauce), the pelmeni (the Siberian meat dumplings boiled in broth), the kvass (the fermented rye bread drink — the traditional Russian non-alcoholic or very low-alcohol drink)).
Yasnaya Polyana (Ясная Поляна — "Clear Glade"; 12 km south of Tula; the estate where Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was born, spent 82 of his 82 years of life, wrote War and Peace (1865-1869), Anna Karenina (1873-1878), The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) and Hadji Murat (1904) and is buried; the estate has been a State Museum since 1921 and receives 250,000 visitors/year — the most visited literary estate in Russia): the main house (the white two-storey manor house where Tolstoy lived from 1856 until his death in 1910; the house is preserved exactly as it was in 1910 — the family rooms, the library (the 22,000-volume Tolstoy library — the most important personal library in 19th-century Russia), the study where War and Peace and Anna Karenina were written at the small desk by the window, the dining room, the billiard room, the boots made by Tolstoy himself (cobbling was one of his physical labour disciplines)); the alley of birch trees (the Chertov Most (Devil's Bridge) alley — the lime (linden) tree avenue planted by the young Tolstoy and his brothers as children: the avenue leads from the entrance gate to the main house and was planted in approximately 1850); the orchards (the Tolstoy apple orchard — one of the largest apple orchards in the Tula region, maintained as it was in Tolstoy's lifetime).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideTolstoy's grave (the most moving literary grave in Russia — Tolstoy requested burial in the birch forest of his estate at the spot where, as a child, he and his brother Nikolai had buried a "green stick" on which they claimed was written the secret to universal happiness and the end of all human suffering; the grave is a plain rectangular mound of earth with no stone, no cross, no inscription (Tolstoy explicitly refused any religious ceremony or monument): the contrast with the ornate graves of other Russian writers (Dostoyevsky's gilded Orthodox grave at the Tikhvin Cemetery in St. Petersburg; Pushkin's stone monument at the Svyatogorsky Monastery) makes Tolstoy's simple earth mound the most philosophically consistent grave in Russian literature — the man who renounced wealth, title and the Orthodox church is buried without any of the markers of either); the birch forest walk (the walk through the Yasnaya Polyana birch forest (the berezka — the Russian silver birch (Betula pendula) — the defining tree of Russian romantic imagery: the white papery bark, the weeping branches, the yellow autumn colour; the Yasnaya Polyana forest in October is the most quintessentially Russian landscape in the Tula region)); the Tolstoy School (the experimental school for peasant children that Tolstoy ran at Yasnaya Polyana in 1859-1862 — one of the first progressive education experiments in Russia).
Kulikovo Field (Куликово поле — 140 km south of Tula; the site of the Battle of Kulikovo (September 8, 1380 — the decisive battle between the forces of the Grand Prince of Moscow, Dmitry Donskoy (1350-1389), and the Golden Horde army under the Tatar commander Mamai; the Russian victory at Kulikovo was the first significant Russian military victory over the Mongol-Tatar forces since the Mongol invasion of 1237-1242 and is considered the beginning of the end of the Mongol yoke over Russia (which formally ended in 1480 with the "Great Stand on the Ugra River")); the battle (the confrontation on the Kulikovo field (the field between the Don River and the Nepryadva River — "behind the Don", hence Dmitry's title "Donskoy"): the Russian forces numbered approximately 50,000-60,000; the Golden Horde army approximately 60,000-70,000; the battle lasted approximately 3 hours; the decisive moment was the ambush of the Golden Horde cavalry by the Russian reserve force under Prince Vladimir Serpukhovsky from the Dubravka forest; the Golden Horde army was routed; Mamai fled and was later killed); the Kulikovo Field Museum (the state memorial museum on the site of the battle: the diorama of the battle, the archaeological finds from the field (arrow heads, armour fragments, harness pieces), the detailed reconstruction of the military formations).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideTula evening (the historic centre of Tula — the area around the kremlin and the main Prospekt Lenina avenue): the Tula samovar tea ceremony (the traditional Russian tea ceremony centred on the samovar: the samovar is fired (the charcoal or pinecones in the central tube are lit; the water comes to a boil in 15-20 minutes); the zavarka (the very strong tea concentrate brewed in a small teapot placed on top of the samovar to keep warm; the hot water from the samovar tap is used to dilute the zavarka to the desired strength in the drinker's cup); the traditional accompaniments (the Tula pryanik (the gingerbread); the varenye (the Russian whole-fruit preserves — strawberry, lingonberry, currant — served in a small dish and eaten with a spoon; the varenye is not spread but eaten alongside the tea); the lump sugar (the traditional Russian method of drinking tea "in glass with holder" (в стакане с подстаканником) — the tea in a faceted glass (granyonyy stakan) in a metal glass holder (podstakannik); the sugar is not stirred but held between the teeth as the tea is sipped through (the "v prikusku" method — "with biting"))); the Pushkin Street evening walk (the main pedestrian street of the Tula historic centre).
Tula Regional Art Museum (the most significant art collection in the Tula Oblast; housed in a 19th-century merchant's house in the historic city centre): the collection (Russian painting from the 18th century to the early 20th century): the landscape school (the Russian landscape painting tradition of the "Wanderers" (Peredvizhniki — the group of Russian realist painters who rejected the Academic tradition and painted the Russian countryside, peasant life and social conditions; founded 1870; the key Tula-linked Peredvizhniki: Vasily Polenov (the landscape painter of the Oka River valley — his paintings of the Tula region's birch forests, meadows and river banks are the most famous representations of central Russian landscape in the 19th century; the Polenov Museum is 140 km north of Tula on the Oka River)); the portraits (the 18th-19th century Russian portrait tradition — the formal portraits of Tula merchants and the Tula noble families who commissioned portraits in the St. Petersburg Academic style); the decorative arts collection (the Tula metalwork — the tula (the local word for the niello metalwork technique of inlaying black alloy into engraved silver or gold — the most characteristic Tula decorative art form, distinct from the samovar manufacturing and the arms making)).
Siege of Tula memorial (the defence of Tula, October 24 to December 5, 1941 — one of the most significant defensive battles of the Eastern Front in World War II): the strategic importance (Tula was the last major defended position south of Moscow; the Wehrmacht's Panzer Group 2 (under General Heinz Guderian — the leading German tank theorist and one of the most capable German commanders of WWII) had captured Orel (on October 3), Bryansk and Kursk and was advancing on Tula as part of Operation Typhoon (the German assault on Moscow in the autumn of 1941); if Tula fell, the road to Moscow from the south would be open); the defence (the garrison defending Tula: the 50th Army (severely depleted), the NKVD regiment, the workers' militia (including the arms factory workers who continued manufacturing weapons during the battle), the 732nd Anti-Aircraft Regiment; the total defenders: approximately 45,000 against Guderian's 100,000+ troops with 300+ tanks; the Tula garrison repelled 5 direct assault attempts and held the perimeter for 45 days; the factory workers manufactured 2 million cartridges and 800 PPSh-41 submachine guns during the siege itself); the Hero City designation (Tula was awarded the Soviet "Hero City" title in 1976 — one of only 12 Soviet cities to receive the title (alongside Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad/Volgograd, Sevastopol, Odessa, Kiev, Minsk, Kerch, Novorossiysk, Murmansk and Brest)).
Vasily Polenov Estate Museum at Polenovo (the estate of Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov (1844-1927) — the Russian landscape painter considered the greatest painter of the central Russian landscape and the Oka River valley; the estate is on the high bank of the Oka River at the village of Strakhovo, 140 km north of Tula (Tula to Serpukhov to Polenovo — approximately 2 hours by car; the alternative route via the Tula-Aleksin highway); the estate (Polenov built the estate himself beginning in 1892 using the proceeds from his painting "Christ and the Sinner" (1887 — the most commercially successful Russian painting of the 19th century, sold to Tsar Alexander III for 30,000 rubles)); the main house (the white two-storey manor house designed by Polenov himself in the Russian Revival style; the house is preserved with the original furniture, the painting studio, the theatre (Polenov also designed theatrical sets) and the collection of paintings by Polenov and his contemporaries); the landscape (the view from the Polenov estate over the Oka River valley (the low-lying floodplain with the silver birch groves, the meadows and the distant church cupolas) is the direct original subject of some of the most famous Russian landscape paintings of the 19th century)).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideTula final evening — the complete traditional Russian experience: the evening meal in a traditional Tula restaurant (the Russian salat Olivier — the traditional Russian dressed salad (boiled potato, carrot, pickle, boiled egg, canned peas and mayo); the ukha (the clear Russian fish soup — the "tsar's ukha" made with three fish stocks (perch, pike and the final salmon) and served with the pirozhki (the small filled pastries of the Russian dinner tradition)); the local vodka (the tradition of Russian craft vodka: the Tula-region vodka from the grain of the Oka River valley agricultural plains); the varenye tasting (the full range of Russian whole-fruit preserves — the Tula confectionery tradition extends beyond the pryanik to the varenye (the strawberry from the Tula Oblast summer orchards), the yagoda (the wild berry preserves from the Tula forests) and the sour cherry (vishneva) which is the most characteristic Russian varenye); the final samovar tea (the traditional samovar farewell tea with Tula pryanik; the pryanik as a gift (the custom of giving Tula pryanik as a souvenir — the moulded gingerbread with the city design; every Russian returning from Tula brings pryaniki as a gift, making the Tula pryanik the most universally given Russian provincial souvenir)).