Galkin

A contact in the imperial capital (Petersburg) whom Chekhov had evidently approached before setting out for Sakhalin, expecting a letter of introduction or advance notice to the island administration on his behalf; named here only as having failed to write anything about him ("Галкин не писал обо мне ни слова"). Distinct from Mikhail Nikolaevich Galkin-Vraskoy, the head of the Main Prison Administration to whom Chekhov's formal January 1890 petition was addressed -- this "Galkin" is grouped in the same sentence with "Baroness Vykhukhol" and "the other geniuses" as one of several well-placed acquaintances who proved useless, which reads as a distinct, lesser-placed figure rather than a shortening of the prison-administration chief's compound surname. No further identifying detail survives in this letter; recorded as unidentified rather than merged with Galkin-Vraskoy.