Smoke and Tolstoy

I have surprise internet access here in Moscow, so here's a blog post.
This city is unbelievably smokey. As I mentioned before, Russia's hot, dry summer has caused a fire crisis. Not only are forests burning, but also a lot of swamps that are full of spontaneously combusting peat moss. Don't worry. I am still not in danger. I will not go up in flames and neither will my stuff. However, I do have to see a lot of smoke. In Yaroslavl, everything looks kind of a hazy and the sky is blue-grey at its clearest. Here in Moscow, the smoke is so thick it stings my eyes. It looks like a dense fog. All the time. A lot of people are wearing masks outside. It's lucky I'm only here for a couple days. I'm sure breathing this smoke is not good.
In better news, today I went to the estate of Leo Tolstoy, one of Russia's most famous authors. He wrote War and Peace, in addition to other important literature. This year is the 100th anniversary of Tolstoy's death, so it was neat to visit his home. Tolstoy spent quite a bit of his long life trying to be a peasant. He had this idealized vision of how wholesome and pure it is to work long hard hours on the land, but over and over again he went back to his material pleasures. I don't think peasants are peasants because they want to be. Tolstoy didn't understand that. Silly guy. Anyway, his estate was really nice, foresty with a pond and apple trees and horses. The smoke (which wasn't quite as dense as it is in Moscow) made the woods look really hazy and mystical. He was born and buried on that estate and we visited his grave, which was very peaceful. It was a nice trip. Tomorrow we're doing a few more Moscow things then its back to Yaroslavl.