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Is the noted 19th-century Russian author — who was also famous for his bouts with depression and gambling — really the best name for a new Moscow transit post?
That’s the debate swirling around the station “Dostoyevskaya.” The London Daily Telegraph reports on fears surrounding the site, which is decorated with mosaics representing violent scenes from Dostoyevsky’s most famous novels.
But is Crime and Punishment the ideal complement to the morning commute? The Telegraph notes that nearly 80 individuals commit suicide in the Moscow metro annually, prompting medical members to generate their argument against the dark literature being fused together with a train platform.
“The deliberate dramatism will create a certain negative atmosphere and attract people with an unnatural psyche,” Mikhail Vinogradov, a prominent psychologist, told the Telegraph.
That thesis did little to dissuade the psyche of the artist behind the wallwork — Ivan Nikolayev. His view was — what’s all the fuss about?
“I do not agree (that it is gloomy),” Nikolayev told the Telegraph. “I think people who say it is do not fully understand the tragedy in Feodor Dostoevsky’s novels.”