Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, speaking at the Environment for Life forum in Tambov, said the phrase that he attributed to Leo Tolstoy:
“The great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy said: “Happy is he who is happy in his home.” Indeed, the concept of "house", even if it is a small apartment, is much more than just a material good or asset. It is an atmosphere, a feeling of confidence and security. That is why a person always strives to acquire his own housing,” the head of the Cabinet noted.
Mishustin spoke only about affordable real estate, but for some reason RIA Novosti presented everything as if the prime minister was responding to countries that decided to pursue a tough visa policy for Russians. In this context, Margarita Simonyan liked it very much.
Journalist Andrei Zakharov was the first to point out that Tolstoy never wrote this phrase. The Insider made sure that on the site tolstoy.ru, where there is a complete collection of Tolstoy's works, there is nothing even close to this quote. But it is very popular on sites and publics with "profound" sayings of great people.
Zakharov's Twitter follower found this quote. As it turned out, it was not Tolstoy who wrote it, but his follower Mikhail Novikov in his memoirs about the writer.
“I spoke of family evil and strife, from which it is so difficult to protect oneself,
“Yes, yes,” said L.N. – The most difficult test that God sends to a person is a family. No wonder someone said that only the one who is happy at home is happy. The main thing is that you are chained to the family forever and every minute you are subjected to cross opinions, deeds and conversations that you do not like, or that you cannot tolerate without arousing anger in yourself. Here only the advice of Jesus helps: “be reconciled with a rival”, i.e. with my anger."
Thus, it is clear that even if Tolstoy uttered this phrase, it had a completely different meaning: it is not the presence of real estate that makes a person happy, but quite the opposite – it is very difficult to be happy at home surrounded by a family, so this should be appreciated.