“At the beginning of July, in an extremely hot time, in the evening, a young man went out of his cubicle, which he had hired from tenants in the S-m alley, into the street and slowly, as if in indolence, went to Kwell bridge. His cubicle fell under the very roof of a tall five-story building and looked more like a closet than an apartment. His landlady, from whom he rented the room with lunch and servants, was placed one staircase lower in a separate apartment, and every time he went outside, he had to walk past the hostess's kitchen, almost always wide open on the stairs. And every time the young man passed by, he felt a painful and cowardly feeling of which he was ashamed and wrinkled. He had to be around the hostess and was afraid to meet her.” It is with these words that the reader begins to get acquainted with the main character of the novel.

The building in which Rodion Raskolnikov lived in the novel was built in 1831 by architect Egor Tsollikofer. However, the building has not survived to this day in its original form: it was rebuilt in 1970 — during major repairs, the premises located in the basement were destroyed, so the house became four-story building.

The main character's room “Crime and Punishment” was located in the attic and has been preserved to this day. Fyodor Dostoevsky described it as follows: “It was a tiny cell, six steps long, which had the most miserable appearance with its yellowish, dusty and everywhere behind the wall wallpaper, and so low that it was just a little - a little tall person was getting creepy in it, and it seemed like you were about to hit your head against the ceiling. The furniture corresponded to the room: there were three old chairs, not quite working, a painted table in the corner, on which there were several notebooks and books; from the way they were dusty, it was clear that no one's hand had touched them for a long time; and finally, the awkward large sofa, which occupied almost the entire wall and half the width of the entire room, once covered with chintz, but now in rags and served as a bed Raskolnikov”.

Currently, there is a commemorative plaque on the house, installed in 1999. It is engraved with the words of Daniil Granin and Dmitry Likhachev: “The tragic fate of the people in this area of St. Petersburg served as the basis for Dostoevsky's passionate preaching of good for all mankind.” Above the board there is a bas-relief depicting the writer. Now the Raskolnikov House is an attractive attraction for all admirers of the work of Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.