 The previous May, his parents had sent Dostoevsky and his brother Mikhail to St Petersburg to attend the free Nikolayev Military Engineering Institute, forcing the brothers to abandon their academic studies for military careers.Dostoevsky entered the academy in January 1838, but only with the help of family members.Mikhail was refused admission on health grounds and was sent to an academy in Tallinn, Estonia (then known as Reval).