Testov's

Reading notes

• The Foolish Frenchman §1 Testov's tavern

  A real and celebrated Moscow tavern-restaurant on Voskresenskaya Square, famous above all for its blini and traditional Russian cuisine; a byword for lavish eating in Moscow of the period.

• My Wives §8 Testov's

  Testov's tavern-restaurant on Voskresenskaya Square, a real and celebrated Moscow eating house of the period, invoked here as a benchmark of fine home cooking that the narrator's first wife's cooking surpassed.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 13 May 1883. Moscow. §5 Testov's

  Testov's, one of Moscow's most famous and expensive restaurants, celebrated for its traditional Russian cuisine; being taken there by Pastukhov signals the tabloid publisher's wooing of Chekhov with lavish hospitality.

• To N. A. Leikin, 15 November 1887. Moscow. §11 dine at Testov's

  Testov's, one of Moscow's most famous and expensive restaurants for traditional Russian cuisine; Chekhov proposes it as the venue for the promised get-together, continuing the letter's turn from grumbling to genial invitation.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 26 October 1891. Moscow. §4 Testov's

  One of Moscow's best-known and most expensive restaurants, celebrated for traditional Russian cuisine; Chekhov's real, if only half-serious, motive for discouraging the Zaraysk trip is that he wants "Al. Al." free to dine with him there the next day instead.

• To F. O. Shekhtel, 14 December 1891. Moscow. §8 Won't you have supper with me at Testov's?

  Testov's, one of Moscow's most famous and expensive restaurants, celebrated for traditional Russian cuisine; Chekhov proposes it but immediately defers the actual choice of venue to Shekhtel.

• To F. A. Kumanin, 26 January 1892. Moscow. §5 As for pancakes, I must give it some thought. Shall we not eat them at Testov's? They have excellent pancakes there.

  The pancakes (\emph{блины}, bliny) are a seasonal cue: late January 1892 falls just before Maslenitsa (Shrovetide/Butter Week), the traditional pre-Lenten festival whose signature food is bliny eaten in quantity, often with butter, sour cream, or caviar. Chekhov's mock deliberation over where to eat them -- proposing Testov's, one of Moscow's most celebrated and expensive traditional-Russian restaurants -- turns an ordinary domestic aside into a small comic set piece: a man too ill to write nonetheless has strong opinions about where to get his holiday pancakes.

• In Moscow §12 Testov's

  One of Moscow's most famous and expensive restaurants, known for traditional Russian cuisine; gorging there daily without knowing why is offered as a symptom of the narrator's empty routine.