IF YOU are drawn to great cities then Moscow is a must. If you can endure noise and the traffic, the urgent throb of a metropolis on the make, Moscow will not disappoint.

The famous sights - Red Square, St Basil's Cathedral, the Kremlin, the Bolshoi (temporarily sheathed in plastic sheeting while they restore the outer fabric of the world's great opera houses) - are unchanged since the days of the Soviet Union.

But otherwise the city is transformed: new highways jammed with expensive cars, restaurants, night clubs, shopping malls, advertising hoardings that put Piccadilly Circus to shame.

While I was there, Madonna was in town and I found my way to a pre-performance party in her honour where the bouncers and the paparazzi made a first night in New York seem positively pedestrian.

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The event was organised by the Russian edition of Vogue and there were enough platinum blondes on show to enchant a phalanx of wannabee James Bonds. There were Bentleys and Maseratis and even a Lagonda. You either love or loathe it. Either way, you will soon need a break.

I can think of no better means of escape than to take the train from Kursky station to Tula, which is about 125 miles (200km) to the south of Moscow and, from there, a taxi ride of about seven miles to a haven of rural tranquillity called Yasnaya Polyana. After a journey of about 10,000 miles from one end of Russia to the other, this quiet backwater is etched more indelibly in my memory than anywhere else in that vast nation.

Yasnaya Polyana, which means Clear Glade, was the estate where Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 and where he wrote his two most famous novels, Anna Karenina and War And Peace. Today it is a shrine to his memory and a living embodiment of his vision and values. It is a magical place of escape and refreshment.

You can't miss the estate. You reach it by driving through the village of Yasnaya Polyana, which is no more than a straggle of modest homes with cottage gardens. There is a scatter of ducks and geese, a few cows and a scuttle of hens, which, as always, get out of your way just in time. Tolstoy once owned the entire village (and another dozen or so as well). He also owned the villagers or most of them, at least. Serfdom was not abolished in Russia until 1861 - though the great writer, who was also a progressive landowner, liberated his own serfs a couple of years earlier. Despite the fact that the residents are now free to live their own lives, the village still has the feel of belonging to the lord of the manor.

I was met by Tolstoy's great-great-grandson, Vladimir, who told me that living in Yasnaya Polyana made him “one of the happiest men on earth”. I could see why. He has one of the best jobs on earth. Although the family no longer owns the estate (it was confiscated, but preserved after the revolution), he runs it on behalf of the charity to which it was bequeathed by the new Russian state after the collapse of communism 18 years ago.

Vladimir told me that his challenge is to make Yasnaya Polyana “a symbol of the new Russia, peaceful and full of love”. Given the unsavoury character of the Russian leadership, I thought this to be a big challenge. He said that he wanted to resurrect the spirit of his ancestor, who was a simple man. “I want to spread the message. That is my dream. Yes, I am an optimist. I am a romantic.”

As I am also a romantic, I knew what he meant. And by the time had wandered around the estate on a balmy September afternoon, I really didn't want to leave. I walked through apple orchards, along leafy rides and into the meadows where Tolstoy used to work alongside his serfs mowing the hay. I sat on a bench made of birch where he used to sit in a favourite part of his beloved wood. And I stood in silence in a glade facing the simple grass mound where he was buried in 1910. The solitude of the moment was broken only by the rustle of the wind; it was truly hallowed ground.

As I have always been in awe of Tolstoy, I found myself intoxicated by the spirit of the great man's presence. When I mentioned this to Igor, the estate worker who had been deputed to show me round, he did not seem at all surprised. We stood by the edge of a brook and he said: “In the evening there is always a mist here. I don't know whether it is Tolstoy, but you can feel the spirit.” You don't have to be as smitten I was to enjoy the estate, but I think it helps.

Tolstoy's house itself is now a museum, though that term hardly does it justice. It feels as though he left it only a few days earlier: his drawing room, the dining room and the bedroom where his trademark white smock still hangs on a wardrobe. It is generally forbidden, but because we were filming for the BBC Two series, Russia - A Journey With Jonathan Dimbleby, I was even allowed to touch the hem of this famous garment. The house is beautifully preserved and to explain what is not immediately clear to the visitor - “here was the couch on which his children were born”, “this is where he sat on the veranda” - there are expert guides who speak excellent English.

You can also visit the original schoolroom where he provided free education for the children of the village - using revolutionary teaching principles that appalled the education authorities in Moscow, but which Vladimir's wife still uses in the village school that they have established to continue the Tolstoy tradition.

If you have more time than I had, you can also sign up for a range of courses on Tolstoy and his place in Russian culture. You can also learn Russian in the process. However, I did take the chance of a ride on one of horses (available for hire) that are kept in the old stable block. They have a variety of breeds, including one or two of the very best Russian thoroughbreds. I chose a white horse, the same colour as Tolstoy's favourite. He was a fine horseman even into old age and I galloped off through the apple trees chasing his ghost. It was an unalloyed delight.

While I was there a wedding party arrived and then another and then another. One after the other, the newly weds lined up in front of the house for formal marriage portraits. Like the family groups and a busload of pensioners who meandered through Yasnaya Polyana, they seemed just as entranced as I was by the spirit of the place. As I say, once you've “done” Moscow, Yasnaya Polyana is a must. You won't regret it.

NEED TO KNOW

Yasnaya Polyana visitor information: www.yasnayapolyana.ru/english

Russia - A Journey to the Heart of a Land and Its People by Jonathan Dimbleby is published by BBC Books (£25)

Russia: A Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby starts on BBC Two on Sunday, 10pm.

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