person
The Alferaki family
Alferaki
also: Alferakis, Алфераки
A wealthy Greek-Russian merchant family of Taganrog whose mansion was a center of the town's social and cultural life, hosting concerts the Chekhov brothers attended.
Reading notes
- To Al. P. Chekhov, 9 March 1876. Taganrog. §3 the Alferaki house
The Alferaki family were wealthy Greek-Russian grandees of Taganrog whose mansion hosted concerts and other social events the Chekhov brothers attended.
- To the Chekhovs, 7 April 1887. Taganrog. §36 A chamber-pot is permissible only in dreams and fancies. This luxury is allowed oneself in Taganrog by only two people: the harbor-master and Alferaki
A continuation of the letter's frank, unsentimental household-sanitation commentary (cf. loc. 14): Chekhov jokes that an indoor chamber-pot is such a luxury in Taganrog that only the town's two wealthiest, most eminent residents -- the port's harbor-master and a member of the Alferaki family, Taganrog's leading Greek merchant dynasty -- can afford the comfort of not going outside at night.
- To M. Ye. Chekhov, 13 March 1891. Petersburg. §5 since his surname is not a Russian one
Reported here as a plain social fact about the ceiling on Alferaki's civil-service career under the tsarist bureaucracy, not as an opinion Chekhov endorses; the Alferaki family was of Greek origin, prominent in Taganrog's merchant and cultural life. The specific individual holding this new post is not otherwise distinguished by name from the family entity in this corpus.