Petersburg Slums

Throughout his life, Vsevolod Krestovsky wrote numerous stories, essays, novellas, and novels. This was enough for a collected works in eight volumes, published after the writer's death. However, it was undoubtedly the novel "Petersburg Slums" that brought Krestovsky fame and... success. It was not only read but devoured. To speak in modern terms, the novel became a true bestseller of Russian literature in the second half of the 19th century. The Petersburg that Krestovsky opened up, the Petersburg of slums, particularly amazed and interested his contemporaries: readers even made collective excursions to the places described in the novel: taverns, moneylenders' shops, the banks of the Neva and Kryukov Canal, etc. Krestovsky managed to organically combine the traditions of realistic prose with an adventurous plot, in which the fates of characters from various social groups intertwined - from representatives of high society to beggars and thieves. In short, all of Petersburg, both splendid and criminal.