Tens of thousands of dragooned serfs perished while draining the swamps to lay the foundations of St. Petersburg, and residents like to remind visitors that their city, enchanting though it may be, “rests on bones.” Its charnel mansion has fed the imagination of some of Russia’s greatest writers, most notably Fyodor Dostoyevsky, whose works are lodged deep in mine: Crime and Punishment and Notes From Underground are two masterpieces of the many in Russian literature that inspired me to become a writer. I recently traveled to St. Petersburg to reconnect with him and his environs, hoping to rediscover something of …read more
Source: The Atlantic
