Just thank the gods that they didn’t have supermarkets. Imagine the confusion trying to call out for a missing child. You’d be overcome by confused Aethlys. Russian novels are much the same. Keep hopping back to “cast list” at front until you get so confused you give up. However, I have read all of the Erast Fandorin books by Boris Akunin. Fandorin is a sort-of detective in imperial Russia. Adventures odd and eccentric and with similarly strange but very entertaining characters.