Bekhovo is a historical village on the Oka River in the Tula Region. The village is located on the high bank of a river bend and is surrounded by picturesque natural landscapes. The Oka is one of Russia’s biggest rivers. Tarusa, a city known since the 13th century, is located a few kilometres away from Bekhovo on the opposite bank. The landscape around Bekhovo is protected as an archaeological monument of the Iron Age. However, Bekhovo’s history is not so much associated with the monuments of antiquity as it is with the beauty of the natural landscape and the people who preserved them. Bekhovo’s development as a territory that has preserved its natural and cultural heritage is linked to Vasily Polenov, the prominent Russian painter that moved from Moscow to the countryside. Through his painting, Bekhovo is familiar to Russians since school. Those landscapes are protected by the state.
In addition, the fact that Bekhovo is a ‘cultural’ village also makes it unique. In 1892, the Polenovs opened a museum at the estate, which became the first art museum in a village in Russia that was accessible to a wide range of visitors.
Today, all the buildings have been granted the status of federal cultural heritage sites. Monuments located in the village of Bekhovo (Church of the Holy Trinity and Vasily Polenov’s grave) have cultural monument plates. The Trinity Church was built according to the project and at the expense of Vasily Polenov. The construction work was completed in 1906. Famous Russian artists, contemporaries of Polenov, took part in the design of the interior.