person
Mark Ivanych
also: Марк Иваныч
Zotov's crony and neighbor, a grocer who gives him oats for the horse over tea and needles him -- not unkindly, but bluntly -- about why he keeps feeding useless old animals instead of taking them to the knacker's, and about why he doesn't simply go live with his granddaughter.
Reading notes
- The Dependents §27 куму
'Kum' denotes a ritual kinship rather than blood relation -- specifically the bond between a child's godfather and the child's parents, or, more loosely by this period, an intimate old friend or crony; Zotov and Mark Ivanych address each other as kum/kума throughout, marking a long-standing informal intimacy rather than actual family.