Grushenka’s patron. He is an old shopkeeper and “a profligate peasant.” He is also the mayor of Skotoprigonyevsk—the town in which the Karamazovs live. As the result of an illness, he lost the use of his leg, which had already become swollen. He is a widower and “a tyrant over his two grown sons.” He is a very wealthy man and a great business man, “tight-fisted above all and hard as flint.” He develops admiration, however, for Grushenka and becomes close to her. He even gives her eight thousand roubles, despite his reputation for being “stingy and implacable.” He dies a week after Dmitri Fyodorovich’s trial. On his deathbed, he refuses to see Grushenka.