with his grandchildren (Sofia and Ilya), 1909-1910 Count Ilya Tolstoy was born in 1903 at Toptivovo,
Tula, Russia. His father was Count Andrey Lvovich Tolstoy, son of writer
Leo Tolstoy, and his mother was Olga Diterichs, daughter of General of the Infantry Konstantin Diterichs (and sister of General
Mikhail Diterikhs). Tolstoy attended the Moscow School of Agriculture, before joining the Imperial Cavalry and serving in
Tashkent. In 1917 – 1918 he worked for the Russian Department of Agriculture in
Turkestan. Tolstoy emigrated to the United States in 1924. He studied at the
William Penn College and Iowa State University, Ames. In 1927, Tolstoy became associated with the explorer and naturalist,
William Douglas Burden, an associate and trustee of the
American Museum of Natural History. He was inducted into the Explorers Club in New York in 1931. Tolstoy was one of the pioneers of
underwater photography and one of the founders and owners of the world's first
oceanarium,
Marineland of Florida with William Douglas Burden,
Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney and
Sherman Pratt. ,
Tibet In World War II Tolstoy was an officer in the
Office of Strategic Services. He and
Brooke Dolan went to Tibet as envoys of the American President
Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 and met the
Dalai Lama, then barely seven years old. Dolan and Tolstoy's expedition entered Tibet by the
Nathu La. In 1945 he headed a top-secret mission into the interior of China of search of
uranium. His first marriage in 1920 was to Zoya Dmitrievna Platonova (born on 18 December 1891, died on 27 September 1978). His son Count Alexander Tolstoy was born in 1921. His second marriage was to Vera Ilinichna Sidorkova (born on 28 September 1894, died on 10 August 1974), by whom he had a daughter, Sofija, born in 1922. The marriage ended in divorce. Tolstoy died on 28 October 1970 in New York and was buried in the cemetery of the
Novo-Diveevo Cemetery, Nanuet, New York, USA. ==References==