The old pawnbroker’s house is located on the embankment of the Griboedov Canal. The heroine of Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, Alyona Ivanovna, who was murdered by Rodion Raskolnikov and engaged in usury, lived there. The address of the old pawnbroker’s house has been the subject of many years of searches and discussions among researchers of the novel’s topography. Since the 1920s until the present day, various versions of the house’s location have been proposed, with most researchers considering the residential building facing three streets, located at the address: 104 Griboedov Canal Embankment, to be the most consistent with the description in the novel.

The house of the old pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna — “a tiny, dry old woman, about sixty years old, with sharp and angry little eyes, with a small sharp nose” — was situated at the intersection of the “ditch” embankment and a certain street, had two courtyards and two gates, and was 730 steps away from Raskolnikov’s house in the S—y Lane; by the standards of the mid-1860s, the building was considered “enormous.” In Chapter 4 of Part Two, it is mentioned that “opposite that very house” there was a tavern, whose keeper was “a certain peasant Dushkin.”

The heroine’s apartment — “with geraniums and muslin curtains on the windows,” “a dark hallway partitioned off by a screen, behind which was a tiny kitchen,” and “a tiny room where the old woman’s bed and dresser stood” — was located on the fourth floor, with the entrance to the staircase “now from the gate to the right.” The novel’s main character, Rodion Raskolnikov, visited there three times: the first time to “test his enterprise,” the second to carry out “the deed,” and the third after the murder, when “an irresistible and inexplicable desire drew him” to “that house.”

With a pounding heart and nervous trembling, he approached the enormous house, which faced the ditch with one wall and the —th street with the other. This house was full of small apartments and inhabited by all sorts of tradespeople — tailors, locksmiths, cooks, various Germans, young women living on their own, minor clerks, and so on. People coming in and out slipped quickly under both gates and in both courtyards of the house. There were three or four janitors working there. The young man… slipped unobtrusively right from the gate to the right onto the staircase. The staircase was dark and narrow… “If at this moment I am so afraid, what would it be like if I really managed to get to the deed?” he thought involuntarily, going up to the fourth floor.

F. M. Dostoevsky. Crime and Punishment.

The first two routes started from the hero’s house in S—y Lane: going to “test,” the hero headed toward the K—n Bridge; when going to commit the murder, he took a “detour,” passing “by the Yusupov Garden” to “approach the house from the other side.” The third time, the path ran from the —sky Bridge, “two steps” from which was the “office,” where “you had to go straight ahead and at the second turn take a left,” but “upon reaching the first turn, he stopped, thought, turned into the lane, and went around, through two streets…”

According to the deciphering of the abbreviated names used in Crime and Punishment, made in 1907 by Anna Dostoevskaya, the designation “S—y Lane” means Stolyarny Lane, “K—n Bridge” — Kokushkin Bridge, “V—y Prospect” — Voznesensky Prospect, “—sky Bridge” — Voznesensky Bridge. The designation “ditch” corresponds to the Catherine Canal.

Then Rodion Raskolnikov walked along Sadovaya Street past the Yusupov Garden to the house where the old pawnbroker lived.

“He had a short distance to go; he even knew how many steps from his gate: exactly seven hundred and thirty. Once he counted them when he was very lost in thought… With a pounding heart and nervous trembling, he approached the enormous house, which faced the ditch with one wall and the —th street with the other. This house was full of small apartments and inhabited by all sorts of tradespeople — tailors, locksmiths, cooks, various Germans, young women living on their own, minor clerks, and so on.”

The house had two exits: to Srednyaya Pod’yacheskaya Street and the Griboedov Canal. Raskolnikov entered the courtyard through Srednyaya Pod’yacheskaya Street. But researchers of Dostoevsky believe he had to exit onto the canal. Otherwise, Dostoevsky would not have indicated that there were two entrances: the writer was always very meticulous and consistent in details.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Дом_старухи-процентщицы