place
Golovin Lane
also: Головин переулок, Golovin pereulok
A lane off Sretenka in Moscow where Chekhov lodged in the autumn of 1883, described in comic topographic detail (unplastered house, mezzanine, vicious dog) in his letters directing visitors.
Reading notes
- To N. A. Leikin, 15 September 1884. Moscow. §6 Golovino
Chekhov's shorthand for Golovin Lane (Головин переулок), where he had lodgings off Sretenka in Moscow; the source text's "в Головином пери" truncates переулке ("lane"), a colloquial clipping typical of Chekhov's hurried letters to Leikin.
- To P. A. Sergeyenko, 17 December 1884. Moscow. §9 Sretenka, Golovin Lane, the house of Yeletsky
Chekhov's return address: his family's lodgings on Golovin Lane off Sretenka Street in central Moscow, in a building owned by a landlord named Yeletsky.
- To Al. P. Chekhov, 21 October 1887. Moscow. §3 Sobolev Lane is to Golovin Lane
A comic Moscow-geography idiom: two unremarkable, unrelated streets invoked as a stand-in for "utterly unconnected to reality," here disclaiming any real-life basis for a satirical story's scandalous content.