In a commemorative note titled “Where Dostoevsky Was Registered,” the writer’s wife gives this address: “3rd Company, house No. 11, apartment 26, registered from September 6.” But in Dostoevsky’s letter to Ivanova dated September 22, 1872, the writer himself gives a different address: “…Petersburg, Izmailovsky Regiment, second company, house No. 14…” The same address, knowing his forgetfulness, Anna Dostoevskaya reminds her husband of in a letter to Moscow dated October 7, 1872: “Our address just in case: No. 14, apt. No. 26.” The modern address—3rd Krasnoarmeyskaya Street, No. 11, including the wing in the yard—has been preserved. This house was through-passage and faced two streets; the Dostoevskys lived in the wing in the yard, and one could reach them either from the 3rd or the 2nd Company (but coming from the center, it was more convenient to enter from the 2nd Company side). Apartment No. 26 appears in both versions of the address, so both are correct. But the address via the 3rd Company turns out to be more preferable.

However, this concerns only the address variant, not the date of the Dostoevskys’ settlement in the Izmailovsky Regiment. They rented the apartment upon returning in 1872 from Staraya Russa, having left for Petersburg on August 24 that year. For some time, possibly a few days, as had happened before, while looking for an apartment, the Dostoevskys might have stayed in a hotel or furnished rooms, but they moved into the house in the 3rd Company of the Izmailovsky Regiment most likely in the last days of August 1872. The police registration, which was routine, was done somewhat later than their actual settlement in the new apartment.

The description of this apartment is found in Anna Dostoevskaya’s words: “Our apartment was located on the second floor of a mansion, deep in the yard. It consisted of five rooms, small but conveniently arranged, and a living room with three windows. Fyodor Mikhailovich’s study was medium-sized and located away from the children’s rooms, so the children’s noise and running around could not disturb Fyodor Mikhailovich during his work.” It is worth noting the impression of the apartment recorded in Solovyov’s diary: “Spacious and clean, but the furnishings were almost poor.” More detailed, in his memoirs, Solovyov described Dostoevsky’s study: “I passed through a dark room, unlocked the door, and found myself in his study. But could one call that poor, corner room of a small wing, where one of the most inspired and profound artists of our time lived and worked, a study! Right by the window stood a simple old table, on which two candles burned, several newspapers and books lay… an old, cheap inkwell, a tin box with tobacco and shells. By the table was a small cabinet, on the other wall a market sofa upholstered in poor reddish rep; this sofa served as Fyodor Mikhailovich’s bed, and it was covered with the same reddish, now completely faded rep, which struck me eight years later at the first memorial service… Then several hard chairs, another table—and nothing more.”

A certain problem arises regarding the name of the homeowner connected with this address. Anna Dostoevskaya calls him General Meves: “…returning from Staraya Russa, we settled in the 2nd Company of the Izmailovsky Regiment, in the house of General Meves.” However, according to the annually published “Lists of Generals by Seniority,” in the first half of the 1870s there was no General Meves in the Russian Empire.

Only in 1878 does the “List…” mention Major General Mikhail Troyanovich von Meves, and in 1884—Major General Richard Trajanovich von Meves. Most likely, the house in the 3rd Company belonged to one of the two von Meves brothers, and Anna Grigorievna calls the homeowner “general” not in reference to the time of their residence in the Izmailovsky Regiment, but by the highest rank he attained in his career. While living at this address, at the end of 1872 Dostoevsky accepted the offer of the publisher of the weekly “Grazhdanin” (The Citizen), Prince Meshchersky, and became editor of this journal-newspaper. The editorial office of “Grazhdanin” was located on Nevsky Prospect, in the Kochendorfer house, No. 77 (modern No. 81), and Anna Dostoevskaya explains their next move by this circumstance: “To live closer to the editorial office of ‘Grazhdanin,’” she writes, “we had to change apartments and settle on Ligovka, at the corner of Gusev Lane, in the house of Slivchansky.” Local history literature indicates that the Dostoevskys lived in the Izmailovsky Regiment “until mid-winter 1873,” but on February 27, 1873, in a power of attorney issued by Dostoevsky to lawyer Polyakov to receive money from merchant Stellovsky by court decision, the address is still given as: 2nd Company of the Izmailovsky Regiment, house 14. Therefore, the move to Ligovka took place not in mid-winter, but no earlier than early March 1873. We have no reason to doubt the motive for the move given by Anna Dostoevskaya (to be closer to the editorial office of “Grazhdanin”), but it is worth noting one curious coincidence: in March 1873, a Night Shelter for 126 people, founded by the Society of Night Shelters, opened in the von Meves house on the 2nd Company of the Izmailovsky Regiment. It can be assumed that the prospect of such a neighbor could also have hastened the Dostoevskys’ change of residence.

Sources:

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