Get to know Zaokskiy through Tarusskaya railway station and its history. Railway heritage, a museum room, and several memorials come together there. Other cultural and landscape themes can be found across the wider Tula Oblast, adding to the picture of the region.
Tarusskaya: Station and memorial sites
Tarusskaya railway station is in Zaokskiy and belongs to the Kursk line of the Moscow Railway. Check the current timetable when planning a specific journey. To mark the 50th anniversary of the Moscow Railway, Russian Railways (RZD) reconstructed the station museum in 2009. A museum room with exhibits about notable figures from the region, including V. D. Polenov and V. F. Rudnev, opened there.
A bust of Polenov is also among the local memorials: it stands in the station waiting room. There is a memorial on the square opposite. This means that the area around Tarusskaya brings together an exhibition room, a portrait inside the station, and a memorial on the square across from it. If you plan to visit the museum room or waiting room, check in advance whether a visit is possible.
Cultural highlights in Tula Oblast
Beyond Zaokskiy, Tula Oblast offers further cultural and historical points of interest. At the Tulskiye Drevnosti Museum, the exhibition “Skazanie o Mamaevom poboishche” explores the Battle of Kulikovo. In the interactive areas, visitors can weave a piece of chain mail, try on armor, and learn to read chronicle miniatures. Another exhibition, “Sekrety tulskikh masterov,” includes a pottery workshop, a blacksmith’s workshop, and household objects from the 17th to 19th centuries. The two exhibitions take different approaches: one focuses on the battle and how it is represented historically, the other on crafts and everyday objects.
The Tulskiye Drevnosti Museum is housed in an early-20th-century mansion that belonged to the merchant and benefactor Stepan Aleksandrovich Yermolayev-Zverev. This regional cultural attraction thus brings together exhibitions on history and crafts, as well as a building with its own architectural and ownership history.
At the Yasnaya Polyana Museum Estate, a guide leads visitors through the central part of the estate. This tour is available from May to October. Topics include Tolstoy’s favorite places for daily walks, the local flora and fauna, and the history of the Tula defensive lines and Tolstoy’s plantings. The tour combines landscape and cultural history, and differs in format from the exhibitions at the Tulskiye Drevnosti Museum.
Architecture and former land use offer other ways to explore Tula Oblast. At the Polenovo estate, the artist Vasily Polenov designed all the buildings himself. The Romantsevskiye Mountains, also known as Konduki, are a former open-pit coal mine. In Monastyrshchino, in Kimovsk District, you’ll find the Museum and Monument to the Heroes of the Battle of Kulikovo; the Konny Dvor is also in the same village. These examples differ markedly in subject, ranging from architectural history to a former mining site and a named museum and monument.
Discover more destinations: Yasnaya Polyana, Uzlovaya, Petrovskiy, Bogoroditsk, Danilovskoye, Tury, Meshcherino, Yefremov
For the regional travel overview: Tula Oblast.
