Eugene Onegin: Pushkin's Petersburg, Moscow and Mikhailovskoye

Before he is a jaded dandy, Onegin is a boy with a French tutor who, in Pushkin's words, "took him walking in the Summer Garden" rather than lecturing him on morals. It is the first glimpse of the world that later bores him: the balls, concerts and parties of 1820s St. Petersburg. The garden itself, laid out for Peter the Great and largely completed in 1719, is still open on its island by the Neva, and today it belongs to the Russian Museum.

Visitor guidance: A public garden on its own island; check the seasonal opening times before you go.

In chapter 1 Pushkin puts himself into the book, strolling with his hero by the Neva. The poet commissioned an illustration of the two walking along the quay, but was exceedingly displeased with the result and scribbled an epigram under it. The Palace Embankment, beside the Summer Garden, still offers the view the sketch tried to catch: the river, the Peter and Paul Fortress and Vasilievsky Island.

Location precision: Pushkin's illustration shows a quay on the Neva; the pin marks the Palace Embankment, not an exact spot.

Visitor guidance: An open riverside street with a view of the Peter and Paul Fortress across the Neva.

Onegin inherits a landed estate, befriends the young poet Lensky, and meets the Larin sisters. The novel never names the village, but Pushkin wrote much of this country part while exiled to his family estate of Mikhailovskoye. He was restricted there for two years after leaving Odessa, and finished chapter 3 in the autumn of 1824. The estate became a museum in 1922 and is open to visitors as the Mikhaylovskoye Museum Reserve.

Location precision: The novel does not name Onegin's village; the pin marks the estate where Pushkin wrote part of the book.

Visitor guidance: A museum reserve in Pskov Oblast, reached by road from Pushkinskiye Gory.

After the duel and Onegin's flight, Tatyana's mother decides to take her to Moscow: "to the marriage fair of brides." Their sleigh arrives by the Petrovsky Palace, which Pushkin calls grim. Catherine the Great built it as a stopover on the road from St Petersburg to Moscow, and later monarchs used it as the last stop before the coronation in the Kremlin. Today the palace stands within Moscow's city limits, near Dynamo metro station.

Visitor guidance: The nearest metro station is Dynamo.

The carriage rushes down Tverskaya, and Pushkin sets down what he saw in Tatyana's sleigh ride through the city. In his day the street was lined with five churches and was the centre of Moscow's social life. In Moscow Tatyana stays with her aunt to find a suitor, and the prince she marries is the one Onegin meets in Petersburg years later. Tverskaya is still Moscow's main radial street.

Location precision: The verse names the street, not a house; the pin marks the centre of Tverskaya Street.

Visitor guidance: A busy city street.