place
Kazan Road
Kazan road
also: Казанский тракт, Kazan tract
The historic post road running east from Nizhny Novgorod toward Kazan, traveled by relay post-horses; Chekhov's onward route from Nizhny Novgorod into the famine-relief district in January 1892.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 10 January 1892. Moscow. §3 I shall have to travel from Nizhny by the Kazan road,
by post-horses.
The Kazan road/tract (\foreignlanguage{russian}{Казанский тракт}), the historic post road running east from Nizhny Novgorod toward Kazan, used here as the onward leg of Chekhov's January journey to the famine-relief district in Nizhny Novgorod province; "on the post-horses" (\foreignlanguage{russian}{на почтовых}) means traveling by relay teams changed at post stations along the route, the standard mode of overland travel before the railway reached these districts, consistent with the harsh-winter urgency of \S3 (a 25-degree frost, insisting on departure "even should it be 40 degrees").
- To A. I. Smagin, 14 January 1892. Moscow. §5 Today I leave for Nizhny, twenty-two degrees of frost. I shall have to go by post-horses along the Kazan road.
Chekhov's onward January travel for the 1891-92 famine-relief effort, continuing the same route described in (there in 25 degrees of frost, resolved on going "even should it be 40 degrees"); \foreignlanguage{russian}{на почтовых} ("by post-horses") means relay teams changed at post stations, the standard mode of overland winter travel before the railway reached these districts.