Rakhmetov

Rakhmetov
What Is to Be Done? character
Created by	Nikolai Chernyshevsky
Information
Gender	Male
Nationality	Russian

Rakhmetov is a fictional character from the 1863 novel What Is to Be Done? by Nikolai Chernyshevsky. Although he is only a minor character (appearing in just 1/10 of the book at the end of chapter three), he is the most famous because he inspired so many Russian revolutionaries. His only action in the story is to give the heroine, Vera Pavlovna, a note from her husband explaining that he has faked his suicide. He also offers his criticisms to Vera Pavlovna for her abandoning of her sewing cooperative.

Rakhmetov is descended from Rakhmet, a thirteenth-century Tatar chief. He is the second youngest of eight children. He inherits 400 serfs and 7,000 acres of land. He is 22 when the novel takes place. His father is deeply conservative and clever. At 15, he falls in love with his father's mistress.

He studies at St. Petersburg University from 16–19, then gives up his studies to travel, estranging himself from his siblings and in-laws. At 17 he builds up his physical strength through gymnastics, then by barge hauling at 20 from which he gets the nickname Nikitouchka Lomoff, a legendarily strong boat hauler on the Volga. His other nickname is 'the rigorist'. He performs all kinds of manual labor on his travels: digging, sawing and iron forging. He explains: "I must do it, it will make me loved and esteemed by the common people. And it is useful ; some day it may prove good for some-thing."

He befriends five or six students and studies obsessively, reading continuously for 82 hours, fueled by eight strong coffees before sleeping for 15 hours. He adopts a strict, puritanical way of life. He is celibate, teetotal, sleeps on planks and usually eats black bread and steak. The only luxury he allows himself are fine cigars "Without my cigar I cannot think; if that is a fact, it is not my fault; but perhaps it is due to the weakness of my will." In St. Petersburg, he permits himself oranges because there ordinary people eat them, but in the countryside he doesn't touch them. After six months continuous reading (mainly Nikolai Gogol, Adam Smith, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill), he decides he has acquired enough knowledge. He never visits people longer than necessary and only visits people with influence over others. He only visits his home to sleep at two or three in the morning.

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