Notes from the Underground: Dostoevsky-themed subway station feared to become a suicide landmark
An artist was hired to paint scenes from Dostoevsky in a Moscow subway station. Does as asked. Hilarity ensues!Ivan Nikolayev, the man who painted the murals didn’t understand all the fuss his work caused: “What did you want? Scenes of dancing? Dostoevsky does not have them,” he said.
From the Telegraph:
The station, called Dostoyevskaya, is decorated with brooding grey and black mosaics which depict violent scenes from the nineteenth century writer’s best-known novels.
One controversial mural re-enacts the moment when the main character in the novel Crime and Punishment murders an elderly pawnbroker and her sister with an axe.
Another shows a suicide-obsessed character in Dostoevsky’s novel The Demons holding a pistol to his temple. If that was not enough to darken the mood, shadowlike characters are shown flitting across the cavernous new station’s walls and a giant mosaic of a depressed-looking Dostoevsky stares out at passengers.
The new station has been criticised as “gloomy and depressing,” and psychologists have warned that its “negative energy” could make it a favourite spot for committing suicide.
“The deliberate dramatism will create a certain negative atmosphere and attract people with an unnatural psyche,” Mikhail Vinogradov, a prominent psychologist said. He and other experts warned that people who wanted to end their lives by throwing themselves under a train could well choose the new station in future.
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Must. See.
