F.M. Dostoevsky Literary-Memorial Museum in Novokuznetsk

Though Dostoevsky was only here for a short period of time, the events and impressions of the Kuznetsk period were embodied in important images and symbols. An archetype of the functionary Marmeladov from “Crime and Punishment” was A.I. Isaev, the first husband of Maria Isaeva, who died in Kuznetsk.

At the beginning of the 17th century, to the southwest of Siberia, a wooden fortress was founded to assert the power of the Russian Empire, and a settlement – Kuznetsk – developed around that fortress. The city began to rapidly develop following the discovery of ore and coal deposits and industrialization in the 1920s and 30s. For employees of the local steel mill, a garden city was built here, as glorified by the poet Mayakovsky, and named Novokuznetsk. The picturesque location of the city has plenty of natural points of interest and places for leisure activities.

Dostoevsky links Kuznetsk to the story of his love for Maria Isaeva, who became his first wife. He married her on February 6, 1857, and spent a month with big hopes for the future: it was for the first time since living in his parent’s house that he got his own family and banished the solitude. The museum is devoted to that period, the so-called “Kuznetsk drama”, revealed in three ways through the author’s biography, literature and philosophy. Visitors are plunged into the imageries and narrative of the writer’s creative musings and get to learn about his philosophical views.

F.M. Dostoevsky Literary-Memorial Museum in Novokuznetsk

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