Ilya Andreyevich Tolstoy

Count Ilya Andreyevich Tolstoy (3 February 1903 Tula Governorate – 28 October 1970 New York City) was a U.S. Army Colonel and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's envoy in Tibet. He was one of the founders of Marineland of Florida, of the Bahamas National Trust, and he served on the Caribbean Conservation Commission. He was a grandson of count Lev Tolstoy. Life 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.