Obukhov Street

Obukhov Street is the Moscow street associated with the approach to Professor Preobrazhensky’s flat and with the novel’s final return to the household after its central struggle. It links the dog’s wary first movement toward human company to the official intrusion that begins the epilogue.

Setting and First Approach

As the dog follows the gentleman who has fed him, Obukhov Street registers first as familiar territory rather than an unknown destination: he recognizes the place and says he has been around. But the route is not reassuring. The prospect of porters at the block of flats provokes his strongest objection; he regards them as enemies, worse than dustmen and even cats. The street is therefore introduced through the dog’s practical, suspicious knowledge of urban life, with the building’s threshold already carrying menace.

The Professor’s Flat

The street is closely tied to the warmth and quiet inside Professor Preobrazhensky’s flat. In the evening, central heating spreads warmth from the ceiling through the room, carpets deaden the sounds, and the dog, lying in his fur, feels the last flea stirred by the heat. Against this sheltered domestic stillness, the distant front-door bell announces an interruption. Obukhov Street thus connects the exposed, watchful world outside with the controlled interior where the dog’s life will be transformed.

Return at the Epilogue

The novel returns to the street in its epilogue, exactly ten days after the struggle in the professor’s consulting room. A sharp doorbell rings, and voices identify the callers as the criminal police, who demand that the door be opened. Footsteps approach; people knock and enter until a considerable crowd fills the flat. The street is not described at length, but its address anchors the renewed arrival of public authority at the private household, echoing the earlier approach while changing its stakes.