Countess Alexandra Nikolaevna Tolstoy-Miloslavsky FRGS (born 14 July 1973)[1][2] is a British equine adventurer, broadcaster, socialite, and businesswoman.
She has made several long distance journeys on horses which have provided the material for television documentaries, books, and talks.
Tolstoy was educated at Downe House,[2] and then studied for a Master of Arts degree in Russian at the University of Edinburgh, during the course of which she spent a year in Russia.
[3] In 2004, she and Galimzyanov embarked upon the 4,300-kilometre (2,700 mi) journey from Turkmenistan to Moscow, retracing an expedition undertaken by twenty-eight Turkmen riders in 1935, who took 84 days to cover the distance.
Riding Akhal-Teke horses, they were stopped from completing the journey by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, but resumed it in 2006 and arrived in Moscow in November.
[3] In September 2003, Tolstoy and Uzbek show jumper Shamil Galimzyanov were married in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral[8] in Bayswater, London, after which they set up their home in a small Moscow apartment.
In 2015, Pugachev moved to the south of France, after facing severe business difficulties in Russia, while Tolstoy remained in London with their children.