Karavannaya Street, merchant Setkov's house, corner of Italian Street, No. 15

From August 18, 1841, Dostoevsky began attending the lower officer class. Having gained the opportunity to live outside the Engineering School, Fyodor Mikhailovich immediately moved to Karavannaya Street to the house of merchant Setkov, at the corner of Italian Street, No. 15 (modern address: Karavannaya St., No. 16/14). There, “shut up in his study, he devoted himself to literary pursuits.” From this moment begins the freedom Dostoevsky had always dreamed of. The house has been preserved in a rebuilt form (built in the early 19th century or earlier; rebuilt in 1875–1878). The house number (and accordingly the surname of the homeowner) is indicated tentatively. Dostoevsky’s residence “on Karavannaya Street near the Manege itself, so that it was convenient for him to attend the officer classes of the Main Engineering School,” is attested by the writer’s younger brother Andrey, who came from Moscow to Petersburg in October 1841 to prepare for admission to the Main Engineering School. From his memoirs, it is known that Fyodor Mikhailovich “occupied a two-room apartment with an anteroom, which also had a kitchen; but he did not occupy this apartment alone, he had a companion — cohabitant Adolf Ivanovich Totleben. Totleben occupied the first room from the anteroom, and my brother the second; each room had two windows, but they were very low and gloomy…”

In December, Dostoevsky lamented in a letter to Mikhail that Andrey was living with him: “What terrible troubles with him. Here is yet another misfortune. His preparation and his living with me, a free, solitary, independent man, is unbearable for me. It is impossible to engage in anything or entertain oneself — you understand, I deeply regret my foolish plan in taking him in.” The writer also complained about the constant need to study something, despite his aversion to the subject. Dostoevsky not only “shut up in his study and devoted himself to literary pursuits,” but also began to discover Petersburg for himself. At this time, the writer frequently attended theaters, concerts, and ballets. For a single ticket to some events, Dostoevsky could without regret give up to a third of his monthly salary. In his apartment, friends constantly played preference or whist, and “the evening always ended with a passionate game of bank or schloss.” Dostoevsky’s contemporaries noted that the writer “with his passionate nature, with his thirst to see everything, to know everything, threw himself indiscriminately into one or another entertainment.” In these years, Fyodor Mikhailovich’s attitude toward money was finally formed: “the more there was, the faster it melted away.” Semenov-Tyan-Shansky noted that “Dostoevsky at that time fought not with need, but with a lack of funds for demands, habits, generous gestures.” In particular, having received a large sum, Fyodor Mikhailovich could invite friends to an expensive restaurant, demanding a luxurious meal. As a result, the money quickly ran out, and the rest of the time the writer lived in constant debt. And at the same time, Dostoevsky finally understood that his calling was literature. He refused the inheritance, later left the service, sacrificing a modest but secure future for his vocation. After years of hopeless poverty, Dostoevsky looked at literature with different eyes: “literary work began to seem like a grand undertaking which — if approached with intelligence and sense — would not only pull one out of poverty and barely feed one, but also make one rich.”

The house number, without any argumentation or reference to documents, was indicated by Felix Moiseevich Lurie. The surname of the homeowner was established according to the “Address Calendar of St. Petersburg Residents” of 1844 by Nistrem. Social status — according to the characterization of his heiress (widow or daughter), merchant woman Fedosya Petrovna Sitkova, who owned the house in 1849.

From January 17 to 24, 1842, Dostoevsky successfully passed the half-year exams in differential and integral calculus, statics, tactics, construction art, and drawing. Dostoevsky lived on Karavannaya Street from August 1841 until February–March 1842, when he moved with his brother Andrey to an apartment “in Grafsky Lane, near the Vladimir Church, in the Pryanichnikov house…”

Sources:

M. Basina: “The Life of Dostoevsky. Through the Twilight of the White Nights”

Boris Nikolaevich Tikhomirov: ADDRESSES OF DOSTOEVSKY IN PETERSBURG: CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SOURCES AND EXPERTISE OF LOCAL HISTORY PUBLICATIONS

Evgenia Sarukhanyan: “Dostoevsky in Petersburg”