Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1821.
He was born on 11 November 1821, according to the Gregorian calendar, at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, where his father worked as a doctor. The hospital stood near Moscow’s Novinsky Boulevard and served low-income residents.
Dostoevsky’s family later moved within Moscow, and his early experiences in the city influenced his lifelong interest in poverty, suffering, faith, and moral responsibility. He eventually studied and worked in Saint Petersburg, the setting of many of his major novels.
A common mix-up is to identify Saint Petersburg as his birthplace because it is strongly associated with works such as Crime and Punishment and The Idiot. Saint Petersburg was central to his literary career, but his birth took place in Moscow. Moscow also became important in the public memory of Dostoevsky: the former hospital site is now associated with the writer’s early life and a literary museum.