Griboyedov Canal

This guide to Griboyedov Canal in Saint Petersburg opens with a literary puzzle: Dostoevsky counted exactly seven hundred thirty steps for Raskolnikov's walk to murder in Crime and Punishment, yet walking it today along this very canal always takes more, and nobody agrees why. It traces the canal's grim nineteenth-century nickname the Ditch, Dostoevsky's own habit of pacing these embankments while broke and gambling, and its later renaming for playwright Alexander Griboyedov. Look for the gilded griffins guarding the Bank Bridge downstream.