Dostoevsky's Petersburg: In the footsteps of Raskolnikov

Arguably the greatest writer St. Petersburg has produced, and certainly the most widely read among foreign audiences, Dostoevsky's works provide many with their first introduction to St. Petersburg. Exploring the neighborhoods where he lived and where he set his most famous novel, Crime and Punishment, this tour is a great opportunity to discover another side of St. Petersburg's history.

The tour begins outside Vladimirskaya Metro Station, where the city's only monument to Dostoevsky was finally erected in 1997 (your guide can also meet you at any centrally located hotel if it is more convenient). From there you will cross the road to the magnificent Cathedral of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, where the devout Dostoevsky and his family were regular worshipers in the latter years of his life.

Opposite the cathedral is the building where the Dostoevsky family lived in his final years, now home to the Dostoevsky Memorial Museum, which is the next stop on the tour. After viewing this beautifully recreated apartment and the adjoining displays devoted to Dostoevsky's works, the group will board the metro (Dostoevskaya Metro Station) and take a short ride to Sennaya Ploshchad ("Haymarket Square"), the locus of the action in Crime and Punishment.

Your guide will lead you through the nearby side streets to the house on Stolyarnoy Pereulok where Raskolnikov rented a garrett and to the house on Kaznacheiskaya Ulitsa where Dostoevsky lived while writing the novel. Then, as the name of the tour suggests, you will follow the path taken by Raskolnikov to the apartment building on the Griboedov Canal Embankment, where he committed the dreadful crime on which the novel hinges.

To complete the tour, you will return to the metro and travel three stops to Ploshchad Aleksandra Nevskogo, where you will enter the Tikhvinskoe Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, Dostoevsky's final resting place. If you wish to place flowers on the great writer's tomb, as locals are wont to do, your guide will be able to help you procure them near the metro.

Itinerary and route details