place

Kaluga

also: Калуга

A provincial town southwest of Moscow, where Chekhov's brother Alexander was staying when he sent the overwrought letter that occasioned this reply.

Reading notes

Two Newspapermen §14 the Turks took Kaluga by storm
Kaluga, a provincial Russian town far from any plausible war front, making an Ottoman invasion of it an absurd hypothetical.
The Beggar §3 Kaluga province
Kaluga province lies roughly 150 km southwest of Moscow; naming a specific, unremarkable provincial posting (rather than somewhere exotic) was a small technique of the beggar's fabricated story, lending it the texture of a real job offer he supposedly could not afford to travel to.
To M. M. Chekhov, 8 February 1877. Taganrog. §3 Kaluga
A provincial town southwest of Moscow, where Chekhov's brother Alexander was staying and from which he sent the overwrought letter Anton is mocking here.
To M. M. Chekhov, 9 June 1877. Taganrog. §5 Kaluga
A provincial town southwest of Moscow where Misha's branch of the family -- his mother, sisters, and the coming bridegroom -- was gathering for the wedding Chekhov congratulates them on.
To M. M. Chekhov, 29 July 1877. Taganrog. §4 Kaluga
A provincial town southwest of Moscow, home to the bride's family; the cousin Misha had evidently traveled there for the wedding before returning to Moscow.
To I. L. Leontyev, 15 December 1891. Moscow. §7 Kaluga province
Chekhov spent the summer of 1891 renting the estate of Bogimovo in Kaluga province (south-west of Moscow), where he wrote much of "The Duel" and worked alongside his physicist friend I. I. Vagner; the letter's brief, unnamed reference to "an estate" in the province is this stay.