In which city was Fyodor Dostoevsky born?

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1821. His family lived in an apartment on the grounds of the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, where his father worked as a doctor. The hospital stood in a comparatively modest district on Moscow's outskirts, an environment that exposed the young Dostoevsky to poverty and social hardship.

Dostoevsky's early Moscow childhood shaped his imagination, although his literary career later became closely associated with Saint Petersburg. He moved there to study at the Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute and began writing professionally in the 1840s. His first novel, Poor Folk, brought him recognition in Saint Petersburg literary circles.

A common mix-up is confusing his birthplace with the city where he spent much of his adult life and died. Dostoevsky died in Saint Petersburg in 1881 and is buried there, but Moscow is the canonical answer to the question of where he was born.