The Scots have long prided themselves on having the only railway station named after a book. This, of course, is Waverley – Edinburgh’s main railway station.
Those other literary people, the Russians, are not to be outdone. Today, the Dostoevsky station opens on the Moscow Metro. (Not that this is the first ever Dostoevsky station. In 1991, they opened one on the St Petersburg Metro.) It does look lovely, as does most of Moscow Metro.
But all is not well in the birthplace of Dostoevsky. The new station, adorned in black-and-white Florentine marble, has mosaics of scenes from four of the great man’s books, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, and The Possessed. These are not the pleasantest of books, especially the first and the last. The blogosphere has not been overly pleased with the images that appear on the walls of the station.
First of all, we have this:
No prizes if you guessed that this is Raskolnikov offing the old woman with an axe.
How about this?
A suicide.
Cheery way to start the day on your daily commute to work, eh?
4 comments:
Brilliant. I could easily live on Dostoevsky Station.
(They ignored his "Poor People" for the murals. I've always been fond of that little book.)
I guess the Russians don't think of themselves as poor any longer!
Wow, amazing, although a little disturbing.
Btw, talking about Oulipo, have you see this Five Dials no.8 (www.fivedials.com)? It's got author Joe Dunthorne trying to tackle Oulipo. Brilliant stuff!
Thanks for the link - haven't seen it before. Will study it like an entomologist.
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