Russian Holidays - Dostoevsky Day

The events in the novel “Crime and Punishment” take place in St. Petersburg in early July 1865. That year there was intense heat in the city, which was reflected in the work dedicated to the mental turmoil of the student Raskolnikov, who killed the old pawnbroker. An unusual space is created in the novel - an unreal world invented by the author, which is known to admirers of his talent as Dostoevsky's Petersburg. It is filled with fogs, ghosts, an atmosphere of hopelessness and the madness of the characters. The city on the Neva, in the writer’s understanding, is the concentration of a diabolical civilization that has a negative impact on humans. Therefore, Raskolnikov committed his terrible crime, admitting guilt and ending up in hard labor. Paying tribute to the talent of the great Russian writer, since 2009 an unusual holiday has been held in the Northern capital. On the first Saturday of July, Dostoevsky Day is celebrated here. It is one of the most popular cultural events in St. Petersburg that occurs in the summer. In honor of the holiday, the city on the Neva organizes exhibitions and film screenings, performances and excursions, lectures and quests that are related to the plot of “Crime and Punishment.” The program of events includes a visit to the apartment-museum of F.M. Dostoevsky and laying flowers at his grave. Participants of the holiday are invited to visit the cultural space “Where is Granny?”, located in the apartment of an old money-lender. Literary readings are held in the city, at which excerpts from the writer’s works are heard, where one of the characters is St. Petersburg: “The Idiot”, “Crime and Punishment”, “Teenager”, “The Brothers Karamazov”. The program of events changes every year. Thus, in 2021 the holiday was dedicated to the 200th anniversary of F.M. Dostoevsky. In honor of the anniversary, the KUKFO theater puppets floated along the canals at midnight, plunging the city into the gloomy and tense atmosphere of the writer’s works. For residents and guests of the city, volunteers of the Dostoevsky Museum conduct excursions through the streets of the Northern capital in early July. They talk about the fate of the writer, the torment and suffering of the heroes of his works, conveyed through the prism of St. Petersburg in the mid-19th century. with a tense atmosphere full of pain and grief. Hunger, terrible need and poverty reaching the point of poverty are the causes of physical suffering and mental torment of the people of that time. Dostoevsky Day is also a celebration of performance. On the first Saturday of July, famous characters and the writer himself walk along the city streets under the summer sun with Pushkin, Turgenev and other classics of Russian literature. Heroes of Dostoevsky’s works can be found at this time on the streets of Moscow, which takes over the baton of the holiday from the cultural capital of Russia.