Tolstoy Organizes Nettle Fest to Help a Village

Closely linked with Leo Tolstoy, the small, well-preserved village of Krapiva hosts the Nettle Festival this weekend.

The name "Krapiva" comes from the Russian word for nettle, and the festival will naturally feature lots of them, including food and drink from the stinging plant and a contest for the best bouquet of nettles. The pirozhki, said Vladimir Tolstoy, a direct descendant of the writer and director who is the head of the festival, are "tasty."

The festival's program also includes music, dancing, folklore performances, games, traditional crafts master classes, a fire show and a night cinema show. Rock group Nechastny Sluchaye will play on Sunday evening.

The festival was founded to raise money for the restoration and reconstruction of the village for future tourist use and is in its seventh year.

"Little by little, we are restoring the church and will start the restoration of the houses in the surrounding square," said Tolstoy of Yasnaya Polyana, the Tolstoy family estate, which is only forty kilometers away from Krapiva. "Every year, we call attention to the village with the festival."

With its church, two-story merchants' houses and cobbled streets, Krapiva retains the feeling of the 19th-century settlement that Leo Tolstoy would have known.

for MT The church in the center of Krapiva.

The family connection goes back to the 16th century when his ancestor was the head of the local region. Tolstoy himself was justice of the peace in Krapiva, and his brother was the head and president of the Assembly of Noblemen, a club of aristocrat families in the area.

Vladimir Tolstoy and another nine descendants of the writer will attend the festival.

About two thousand people live in Krapiva and the surrounding area, but seven or eight thousand people will descend on the village for the festival. Few stay, though, as the city lacks the infrastructure.

With the help of the festival, a hotel will be built in the next three or four years. For now, local residents are starting to open up their homes to tourists.

Sergei, a teacher, is renovating his backyard to make a summer hotel. "What happens is that I'm going to retire soon, and I need to be occupied with something," he said. "I've just finished gathering the material, and the hotel will be ready for next year's festival."

This year, anyone who wants to spend the night in Krapiva can stay in huge army tents that will hold up to 50 people.

Tolstoy came up with the idea for the festival at Yasnaya Polyana and hopes that Krapiva can become part of a tourist route as much as the estate.

"Yasnaya Polyana is a place where ideas come up all the time. Maybe it's not accidental that Lev Tolstoy wrote 'War and Peace' there," he said.

"Everybody in the city takes part in the festival, and people have started to take more care about the appearance of their homes," said singer Lyubov Mikushina, who will perform at the festival. "But most important of all is that the young, who used to run away from Krapiva, have started to come back to give it a future."

Krapiva Nettle Festival takes place June 6 and 7. For a timetable of festival events, see krapiva.gorod4u.ru. A map showing how to get there can be found at www.krapiva.gorod4u.ru/images/2009/karta.jpg.