Notes from Dostoevsky Land

"Raskolnikov, we love you!"   -Message written in the hallway of stairwell of Raskolnikov's apartment building.

On Thursday the Russian Lit class at the school had a field trip. They went to Sennaya district of the city to see different sites from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. I was fortunate enough to tag along. We started out in Sennaya Ploshchad (in the book it is called the Haymarket). In Dostoevsky's day this was the poor part of the city and we walked a short distance to see the building where he lived in when he wrote C+P. It was interesting that one of my students lives in the building next to it. About a stone's throw away, was the apartment of Raskolnikov. Dostoevsky was very detailed about places and streets in the book, and from it, we can find just about every place that is mentioned. For example, at one point in the book, Svidrigailov stays the night in a hostel. Today it's a McDonald's. Fortunately, the doors of Raskolnikov's building were open and we were able to go up. Today, it is still an apartment building, and sometimes the doors will be locked because the residents aren't terribly thrilled with tourists hanging out in their hallway all the time. Also, people leave graffiti (as pictured above), saying things like, "Babki (old hags) must die!"

Speaking of old ladies dying, we then walked over to the apartment building of the old pawnbroker that Raskolnikov murders in the book. It is interesting to note, our guide pointed out, that the building of the old pawnbroker is the same walking distance away from Raskolnikov's apartment as St. Isaac's Cathedral (thus pointing out Dostoevsky's message that Raskolnikov has the free will to decide whether to good or evil; he chooses evil). We got lucky there as well because the door to that apartment building was also opened. Afterward, we went and saw Sonya's apartment, the crossroad where her father, Marmeladov, was killed, and the bridge where two characters meet in the short story "White Nights."