Dostoevsky and World Culture Dostoevsky and World Culture 2619-0311 2712-8512 IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2026-3-322-342 Research Article Articles Moscow Estates in Dostoevsky's Biography: The Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor Bogdanova Olga A. fedor@dostmirkult.ru 25 09 2026 1 3 322 342 Fyodor Dostoevsky childhood Moscow Russian estate rural estate urban estate Moscow Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor Old Russian traditions Europeanization in the 18th–19th centuries Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 This article examines the estate context of Dostoevsky's childhood, identifying the urban and rural estates in Moscow and its surroundings associated with the future writer. For the first time in Dostoevsky studies, the Moscow Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor is examined as an urban estate. Drawing on the work of leading architectural historians and art historians, it is proved that, despite its social rather than proprietary status, it belongs to the estate-type buildings characteristic of Moscow and represent the estate culture characteristic of both old and modern Russia. The article also demonstrates the distinctive estate-based pattern of Moscow's urban development as an ancient Russian city, where patriarchal traditions and an ancient way of life were preserved even in the imperial Europeanized era. It is shown that Moscow in the first half of the 19th century, the time of Dostoevsky's childhood, combined elements of both the Old Russian and the modern European estate tradition. Special attention is paid to the spiritual continuity between the God's House (also known as the Poor House) of the Muscovite Rus era (with its inherent Christian charity and humility) and the Mariinsky Hospital, built in 1806 on its lands to provide charitable care for the poor. It is traced how the hospital-estate complex absorbed the main features of the estate lifestyle of pre-Petrine and post-Petrine Moscow. The article concludes that Dostoevsky's estate world was broader than has previously been assumed and was connected not only with his family's estate at Darovoye in Tula Province but also with the Moscow Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor.