Lottery company sued over novelist image

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- The great-grandson of Fydor Dostoevsky is suing a Russian lottery ticket for using the novelist's portrait on tickets.

Dmitry Dostoevsky seeks 200,000 rubles or about $7,150 in damages from Chestnaya Igra, the St. Petersburg Times reports. He said the use of his ancestor's likeness is especially outrageous because the writer suffered from a gambling addiction that he struggled with.

"It is nothing but blasphemy and a personal insult," Dimitry told the Russian newspaper. "Besides, it is well known that 'The Gambler' has helped many people to give up betting."

Chestnaya Igra uses the images of many well-known Russians on its lottery tickets, including Czar Alexander I and director Konstantin Stanislavsky. Dimitry Doestoevsky said that if the company wanted to use a 19th century writer it should pick Ivan Turgenev who "gambled more, spent more and had more money in the first place."