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May 10, 2005
Where the bling was flinged
NEW YORK - I'm going to post a few lists of pictures from St. Petersburg and Moscow, starting with the easiest. If you've not read Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dosteovsky or don't want me to spoil the plot, skip this post.
In Crime & Punishment, a desperately anti-social and nihilistic student named Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov murders an elderly pawnbroker with the goal of redistributing her wealth and doing some sort of social good. However, the brutality of the murder causes him to fling the stolen bling into a Petersburg canal and he eventually confesses. The novel was a poltical point to denounce the "smash everything" nihilism that was popular in 1860s Russia.
Fortunately, many of the places in Crime & Punishment can be visited today, including Raskolnikov's apartment and the pawnbroker's building where the murder occurs. The neighborhood is largely unchanged, described by Dosteovsky as follows:
Owing to the proximity of the Hay Market, the number of establishments of bad character, the preponderance of the trading and working class population crowded in these streets and alleys in the heart of Petersburg, types so various were to be seen in the streets that no figure, however queer, would have caused surprise.
In fact, there were 18 bars on the four blocks of Raskolnikov's street in the 1860s, and although some have gone now, the place is not much changed. Like the Lower East Side in NYC or Back of the Yards in Chicago, the neighborhood is occupied by mixed blue-collar types or a "human zoo" as the guidebook describes it. The haymarket now has a McDonald's and a Metro station where a 1760s church stood until it was blown up in Soviet times, but otherwise it too is a bit of a zoo lined with little kiosks selling alcohol or providing a few slot machines. Drunkards stagger about, babushkas (old women) slowly amble to food stalls, and men sing Russian karaoke at a mobile Karaoke stall.
There are two possible locations of Raskolnikov's apartment. Here is a picture of one:
For more pictures, click here for an Ofoto gallery.
Posted by adrianjo at May 10, 2005 11:19 PM
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