place
Melikhovo
also: Monrepos, монрепо, Мелихово
The estate of 213 desyatinas in the Serpukhov district, about seventy versts from Moscow, that Chekhov was in the final stages of purchasing as of this letter; the deed of sale was still awaiting notarial confirmation. He jokingly calls it "my own Monrepos" here (a French pun, "mon repos," "my rest"), before the estate's real name, Melikhovo, comes into regular use in the later correspondence; he planned to move in on 1 March 1892.
Reading notes
- To V. V. Bilibin, 22 February 1892. Moscow. §4 not in Malorossiya but in the cold Serpukhov district, seventy versts from Moscow
The estate under negotiation is the property in the Serpukhov district (\foreignlanguage{russian}{Серпуховский уезд}) that Chekhov would take possession of on 1 March 1892 and later come to call by its real name, Melikhovo; here, before that name is in use, he calls it only "my own Monrepos" (\S7).
- To V. V. Bilibin, 22 February 1892. Moscow. §7 I move into my own Monrepos on 1 March
"\foreignlanguage{russian}{монрепо}" (Monrepos) is Chekhov's own jocular French coinage -- from "mon repos," "my rest" -- for the Serpukhov-district estate described in \S4, ahead of its later, real name, Melikhovo, coming into use in the correspondence. The joke plays on the grandiose sound of a French estate-name (there are also real places called Monrepos, including a well-known park estate on Lake Vyborg) applied to Chekhov's own modest new purchase, in keeping with the letter's running joke about wanting "to be a duke" (\S4).
- Notebooks. Diaries §4028 Melikhovo
The country estate south of Moscow that Chekhov bought in 1892 and worked as a farm and family home through the mid-1890s; many of this notebook's dated diary entries (\S4150 onward) are logged from there.