Dostoevsky's St Petersburg

Most visitors see St Petersburg’s palaces and embankments. Dostoevsky wrote about the city behind them: market taverns, tenement staircases and courtyards the sun never reaches. This walk takes you there, with Crime and Punishment as your map.

The novel’s addresses are real. Dostoevsky lived in this district while writing it and placed his characters in buildings you can still enter, so precisely that the route can be followed from the page. Even the number of steps from Raskolnikov’s door to the pawnbroker’s is the one he counted out himself.

The route

Sennaya Square. The meeting point and the heart of the old market quarter, once full of drinking dens and lodging houses. It is where Raskolnikov comes to confess.

Raskolnikov’s house. The corner tenement by Stolyarny Lane, with the garret under the roof. From here you walk the counted steps to the next stop.

The pawnbroker’s house. On the Griboyedov Canal, with the entrance, courtyard and staircase still in place.

Sonya Marmeladova’s house. The odd angle of her room, described in the novel, can be picked out from the facade.

The well-yards. Narrow, enclosed courtyards with a patch of sky high above, which make the characters’ sense of confinement easy to understand.

Dostoevsky’s own flats. Several of the writer’s addresses are in the same streets. He moved often and liked corner buildings with a view of a church.

Along the way you hear about his own life: the mock execution and the years of penal servitude, the gambling and debts, and the stenographer, later his second wife, who saved him from a ruinous publishing contract.

Good to know

• The walk lasts about 2.5 hours at an easy pace and starts at 15:00 on Sennaya Square.
• It is entirely on foot, through ordinary residential streets, so comfortable shoes and weather-appropriate clothing help.
• There are stops for coffee or tea along the way; meals are not included.
• Most of these buildings have no signs, and some have only a small plaque, so the route really needs a guide.
• The tour is private, for your party only.

Who it suits

Readers of Dostoevsky and Russian literature, return visitors looking for a different side of the city, and anyone who prefers neighbourhoods and stories to museum halls.