Dostoevsky's Place

I recall being a four year old standing miserably beyond a pair of iron hospital gates, listening to French being spoken. One and three-quarter centuries on, I am walking contentedly on familiar cobblestones by the Polist river looking forward to going inside the green wooden house. No matter that the building is a mock-up of the one destroyed by soldiers during the Great Fatherland War. I listen to an actor reading Son Smeshnogo Cheloveka - The Dream of a Ridiculous Man - and I recognise the words as my own. Stories about stories about stories. Layer upon layer so they become storeys. Dreams within dreams. Visions of visions. And I understand Dostoevsky's place in my life. From a lovelorn teenager to a faithful husband and doting father, from a drizzly town hall entrance to a five-star Siberian hotel with no third floor, from exterior to interior, from below to above. A matrioshkiscope of existence. We all have to learn some time. Because the clock doesn't stop. Ever.