Today Lev Tolstoy station is situated in Lipetsk Oblast. It got its current name in November 1918. On 1 December 1946 Ivan Ozolin’s former house officially became a branch of Leo Tolstoy State Museum in Moscow. By this time, in the house there had already been collected a literary memorial exhibition. The room where Tolstoy spent his last days remained unchanged. Before the museum was officially opened, station workers were conducting tours for visitors on voluntary basis.
At the station you can also find a marble plaque with an inscription in golden letters “Here on 7 November 1910 Leo Tolstoy passed away”. There is a bust of Tolstoy in the park near the station.
The station building and the nearby houses preserved their outward appearance throughout the XX century. The architectural complex hasn’t undergone any serious changes. Only the locomotive shop was lost. The complex has been granted the status of a cultural heritage site. The architectural ensemble includes the station, the telegraph, a railway college with a church school, an ambulatory clinic, and a nearby park.
In front of the station there is a steam locomotive from the train number 12 “Smolensk – Kozelsk” that brought Leo Tolstoy to Astapovo. There is also a memorial plaque on the locomotive.
Lev Tolstoy station is a railway junction. Despite this, it is not as important now as it used to be. In 1998 the railway line from Lev Tolstoy to Troyekurovo station was demounted. It happened due to lack of demand and high maintenance costs. In 2014 the last local trains to Lev Tolstoy station were cancelled. It ceased to serve passengers’ needs and currently functions only as a freight terminal.
On 23 June 2019 an old water tower near the square collapsed. It is a great loss for the architectural complex. We can only hope that it will be restored one day.
