Moscow bears the historical stigma of a brooding city fringed with murder, corruption and greed. Now these grim trappings of the Russian psyche have found a home underground. The Dostoevskaya Moscow Metro station, named in honor of Russia’s dark prince of literature, delves into the most gruesome nooks of Dostoevsky’s oeuvre. The graphic nature of the murals even went so far as to delay its opening earlier this year. A prominent Russian psychologist, Mikhail Vinogradov, declared before the unveiling, “The deliberate dramatism will create a certain negative atmosphere and attract people with an unnatural psyche.” There is no doubt that death hangs heavy over the polished marble of Dostoevskaya with depictions of Raskolnikov wielding an ax against an elderly pawnbroker and her sister from Crime and Punishment and the suicide-obsessed Kirillov holding a gun to his head from The Demons. Concerned Muscovites fear the station might become a magnet for those contemplating suicide, adding to the almost eighty committed on a yearly basis in the Moscow Metro. However, after my own visit, I felt such concerns are unwarranted. The entire station inspired a sense of reverence and awe. I felt like I was meandering through a church instead of a public transportation hub. The aura of Dostoevskaya was only punctured when a train screeched into the station and let off another teeming load of commuters. The artist behind the murals, Ivan Nikolayev, remains rightfully unapologetic, “What did you want? Scenes of dancing? Dostoevsky doesn’t have them.”
