The Toksovo Ten

Name Guide and Acknowledgements

Name Guide

The characters in this book go by several different names, as diminutives of Russian names are often used among family and close friends. Some of the characters also have English and French nicknames, as that was in fashion among Russian aristocrats during this time period. This is a list of all of the names the major characters are called by.

"The Toksovo Ten"

Count Nikolai Petrovich Tolstyakov (Nicolas, Nikolenka, Nikolashka)

Count Pyotr Semyonovich Tolstyakov (Pyotr Semyonych)

Count Rodion Petrovich Tolstyakov (Rodya, Rodka, Rodenka)

Count Stepan Kirillovich Goncharov (Stepan Kirillych, Stiva, Stenka)

Countess Ekaterina Evgenyevna Goncharova (Katerina Evgenyevna, Kitty, Katia, Katenka)

Darya Petrovna Chebarova (née Tolstyakova) (Dolly, Dolinka, Dollenka, Dasha, Dashka, Dashenka)

Nastasya Arkadyevna Pochinkova (Stasie, Nastya, Nastenka, Nastasyushka)

Prince Dmitri Zakharovich Kamerovsky (Dmitri Zakharych, Mitya, Mitka, Mishka)

Princess Sofya Matveevna Vyazemskaya (Sonya, Sonechka)

Vassily Vassilyevich Chebarov (Vassily Vassilyich, Vasya, Vaska, Vasenka)

Other Characters

Avdotya Grigorievna Tolstyakova (Dunya, Dunechka)

Filipp Ignatyich Rassudkin (Filka)

Fyodor Ogorodnikov (Fedka)

Konstantin (Kostya)

Lida (Lenya, Lidochka)

Marfa Fyodorovna

Marya Numerova (Masha, Mashka)

Sergei Volkov (Seryozha)

Varvara Pochinkova (Varya)

Acknowledgements

There are a few books which I need to give credit to. First of all, this book is heavily inspired by And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, and if you've read it, you'll notice that the plot is very similar. If you haven't read it, you definitely should! It is my absolute favorite murder mystery.

I also read three Russian novels from the same time period to research this book: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and Crime and Punishment and Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. All of the names in this book came from those books, as I used them to make a list of names and diminutives that could be from this time period. None of the characters in this book were meant to be at all similar to the characters they share names with in those books. I used these books to get a lot of details about daily life in Russia during this time, and I even took a few lines directly from Anna Karenina. Two scenes, the wedding scene in Chapter Six and the horse race scene in Chapter Eight, were based off of scenes from Anna Karenina, and use a few lines from Anna Karenina. Nastasya Pochinkova's character was inspired by Sonya Marmeladova from Crime and Punishment.