Sennaya Square. From 1737 there was a hay market at the edge of the city where hay, firewood, oats and cattle were sold. At a later time the Sennaya square was included into the boundaries of Petersburg and even more so, appeared to be located close to its city centre, although the area around the square was inhabited by the lowest classes. Sennaya Square had become the cheapest and liveliest market in the capital, the so-called 'belly' of St Petersburg. The place was known as the very heart of the common folk's life, and that is why Raskolnikov, before he went to the police to plead guilty of the murder he had committed, had knelt and ecstatically kissed the ground of the Sennaya Square in a frenzy to repent. In the drawing a small building can be seen opposite the church of the Assumption of the Mother of God (1753-1765). It is the Guardhouse (1818-1820, the archiect V.I.Beretti). Here Dostoevsky was kept under arrest on March 21-22 1874: as the editor of the journal Grazhdanin (Citizen) he was fined and sentenced to two days in prison for violating the censorship rules. The church of the Assumption of the Mother of God was demolished in the Soviet era (1961); an underground station was built in its place. The market too has been removed from the square more than once, yet in spite of the renovations which closed the market, ever and again it would rise up and has recently taken on a new lease of life: bustling with crowds of shoppers at dozens of stalls and unattractive kiosks where stallholders jostle for trade selling a wide variety of low quality foodstuffs.