Immortalised by Dostoevsky, who lived all over the neighbourhood and set Crime and Punishment here, St Petersburg’s Haymarket was once the city’s filthy underbelly. Indeed, until a much-needed facelift just over a decade ago, the square was overloaded with makeshift kiosks and market stalls, which made it a magnet for the homeless, beggars, pickpockets and drunks. These days, you'll have to look hard to find vestiges of its once insalubrious days.
The peripatetic Dostoevsky, who occupied some 20 residences in his 28-year stay in the city, once spent a couple of days in debtors’ prison in what is now called the Senior Officers’ Barracks, just across the square from the Sennaya pl metro station.
Alyona Ivanovna, the elderly moneylender murdered in Crime and Punishment, lived a few blocks west of here, at nab kanala Griboyedova 104. Her flat would have been No 74, in the courtyard on the 3rd floor.