YASNAYA POLYANA, Russia — Carrying only dim memories of her Russian childhood, Tatiana Paus — elegant and silver-haired — could not contain her excitement as she reached the country estate where her grandfather, Leo Tolstoy, wrote some of the greatest novels of the 19th century.
It was a day of stark contrasts as the celebrated Russian writer's descendants clambered off the special train from Moscow in the sweltering summer heat Friday.
Girls in peasant dress brought bread and salt — the traditional Russian welcome — to the crowd of reunion-goers clad in shorts and T-shirts, video cameras slung over their shoulders.
The gang of Tolstoy descendants were welcomed to a weeklong family gathering by a 12-piece brass band and actors dressed as 19th-century aristocrats out for stroll.
"I love it," the 87-year-old Paus said as she was helped down from the train in this bucolic village in the rolling, agricultural hills 120 miles south of Moscow.
Paus is one of only two surviving grandchildren of Tolstoy — author of "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" — and one of 90 Tolstoy descendants who gathered at the sprawling estate.
They billed it the largest-ever Tolstoy reunion for what great-great-grandson Vladimir Tolstoy calls the birth of Tolstoy's literary career and the birth of the family.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of the writer's first story, "Childhood," and the 140th anniversary of Leo's troubled marriage to Sofia.
The reunions have been summer events for several years as the family tries to preserve ties that were nearly broken as descendants scattered across the globe after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. The last family gathering there was in 2000.
Paus left Russia when she was 3 as her parents fled the communist revolt against the Romanov dynasty. Her only memory of Russia is the playroom at the family home in St. Petersburg. She grew up in Sweden and, like many members of the Tolstoy family, does not speak Russian.
Instead, relatives chatter in a babble of languages — English, French, Italian and Swedish — sometimes straining to understand each other.
The reunion is the brainchild of Vladimir Tolstoy, who became director of the state-funded Yasnaya Polyana museum and nature preserve eight years ago and has embarked on major renovations designed to attract tourists. The museum also accepts private funding.
"The main thing is to more tightly bind the family and to show them what we've done with Yasnaya Polyana," he said.
Vladimir Tolstoy spared no expense this year. Guests arrived by train at a restored station near the foot of a birch-lined lane leading to Yasnaya Polyana. Porters in 19th century costume and antique signs gave the visitors their first glimpse of the graceful life of their aristocratic grandfather who became deeply religious and an aesthetic in his old age. He's buried in a grove of trees at the side of a path through the pines that tower above the estate.
The week's activities at Yasnaya Polyana — Clear Glade in Russian — include horseback riding, hunting with falcons and hounds, and a military re-enactment of scenes from "War and Peace."
The burden of being a direct descendant of Tolstoy, whose great short stories include "The Death of Ivan Ilych" and "The Cossacks" and who was famed as a social reformer and pacifist, falls more heavily on the shoulders of some relatives than others.
John Lvoff, 47, a Paris filmmaker, said he was fortunate not to carry the family name because he was never bothered by automatic questions about his heritage.
When he was a teenager, said Lvoff, who has French and U.S. citizenship, he found other authors such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky more interesting than Tolstoy.
"But as I got older I gained a new appreciation for Tolstoy — especially his emphasis on the importance of family," Lvoff said.
Ekaterina Tolstaya, a 14-year-old schoolgirl in England, said she had read most of Tolstoy's major works and feels a responsibility to maintain ties among the extended family.
"It's great how everyone is getting to know each other, getting closer," she said.
Vladimir Tolstoy said there are 250 Tolstoy descendants in Europe, Russia and North America. More than half of the descendants attending this year are from Sweden, he said.
Paus was overjoyed by the sight of the family house among Yasnaya Polyana's picturesque ponds, orchards, and birch and fir groves, and by the chance to interact with other Tolstoys.
"I think it's wonderful to see all the cousins and the next generation here," she said.