Two Bills of Sale for Darovoe, the Dostoevsky Family Estate

The parents of F. M. Dostoevsky purchased an estate in the Kashirsky district of the Tula Province in 1831. It comprised the village of Darovoe and the hamlet of Darovaya. This purchase is known both from the memoirs of A. M. Dostoevsky, and from numerous indirect sources: metric books of the Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit in the village of Monogarovo (parish church of the village of Darovoe), census records, family correspondence of the Dostoevskys and Ivanovs, etc. However, none of these sources provides sufficiently complete information about when and from whom Darovoe was bought, as well as what it was. In the proposed publication, previously unknown first official documents are introduced into scientific circulation. They allow to clarify the dates and conditions of the purchase of Darovoe by the Dostoevskys — bills of sale for the village of Darovoe and the hamlet of Darovaya, dated 1829 and 1831, that are stored in the reserves of the Central State Archive of Moscow.