In St. Petersburg celebrated "Day of Dostoevsky"

ST. PETERSBURG. With an unprecedented scale, the northern capital celebrated the already traditional “Dostoevsky Day”. Open air performances, exhibitions, quizzes, a literary flash mob, the Dostoevsky dictated campaign, costumed excursions, film screenings, folk readings and many other cultural and entertainment events were held at three venues in the city.

Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky is one of the most prominent writers of the second half of the nineteenth century. From his pen came such famous novels as “The Idiot”, “Crime and Punishment”, “Poor People”, “Brothers Karamazov”, “Demons” and others. During his life, Dostoevsky lived in the capital of the Russian Empire for a total of about 28 years. His literary heritage includes more than 20 works in which Petersburg is an integral part of the life of heroes.

The action "Dostoevsky Day" was first held in St. Petersburg in 2010, after which it became a landmark event for the literary community. The date of the event was chosen by chance - fans of the writer followed the first sentence of the novel "Crime and Punishment": "In early July, in an extremely hot time…".

Dostoevsky’s Day brought residents and visitors to the atmosphere of the 19th century. The main venues for the events were Manezhnaya Square, Nevsky Prospekt and Malaya Konyushennaya Street. It hosted open-air performances, lectures and exhibitions on the life and work of the writer, film screenings, concerts and costume tours.

The organizers of the festival put the main emphasis on the 150th anniversary of Dostoevsky’s most famous novel, Crime and Punishment. In the afternoon on the Manege Square there was a film adaptation based on this novel. And in the window of one of the bookstores on Nevsky Prospekt, the townspeople took part in the "folk reading" of the first edition of the work, and also captured themselves among the heroes of the book and received a unique anniversary card. Also on Nevsky it was possible to meet strolling giant puppets of the Puppet Format theater, similar to Dostoevsky, Gogol and Pushkin.

Open-air performances were held in the squares and streets of the northern capital. Unique programs were presented by the Russian Museum, the Museum of Urban Sculpture, the Museum of the St. Petersburg, and the many libraries of the city. For example, in one of the libraries, guests were invited to write a dictation from texts from the works of Dostoevsky.

The holiday ended in the evening with a performance of the FMD Theater entitled “At the beginning of July, in an extremely hot time…”, which was attended by famous artists of St. Petersburg and the Billy’s Band music group. At the end of all the events, the organizers of the holiday noted that this year the “Dostoevsky Day” was visited by a large number of guests, so they plan in 2016 to make the action even larger.

Svetlana Korableva © Gallerix.ru