Notes from the Underground — Dostoyevsky’s descendant lives on monthly pension of $35

The government has given the film “national movie project” status. Legendary director the late Andrei Tarkovsky had often talked of filming The Idiotê as his dream project.

The Idiot was Dostoyevsky’s favourite novel, Prince Myshkin the perfect hero. He often wrote under pressure from debtors, a fallout of his passion fro gambling.

At present, there are six direct relatives of Dostoyevsky, still alive, all living in St Petersburg. They are Tatyana Vysokogorets-Dostoyevskaya,Dostoyevsky’s great-grand daughter, her son and grand son, her brotherAndrei Dostoyevsky, his son and grand-daughter.

Tatyana, 63, lives on a monthly pension of $35, in an apartment of an aging concrete block, where she was shifted a few years ago, when she could not pay the rent on her old home. With this sum, she has not only to support herself with bread and milk, but also to feed her unemployed son and teenage grand son.

Recently she made an appeal to people, for help through Russian newspapers. There was a flurry of small contributions, mainly from pensioners. But there was no response from the government.

Tatyana feels the Russian government which according to her has indirectlybenefited from Dostoyevsky’s work, should keep her off the bread-line,media reports said.

Tatyana had no particular interest in literature and studied at a technical college before working first as a telephone operator and then as a state central heating official.