place
Odessa
also: одесскою
The major Black Sea port city, invoked for its proverbial dust in the paired joke about the Sea of Azov's mud.
Reading notes
- A Heroine of a Lady §1 Odessa
The major Black Sea port city, a fashionable and somewhat scandalous destination for a husband to disappear to on a vague pretext of business.
- Gusev §57 I'll arrive in Odessa, and from there straight to Kharkov
Odessa was the main Black Sea port of return for Russian troops and civilians traveling from the Far East and points east; Kharkov (in present-day Ukraine) is where Pavel Ivanych claims to have a journalist friend he intends to recruit for his crusade against "the two-legged scum" -- one of several grandiose plans the dying man voices that the story never lets him act on.
- Gusev §98 in Odessa they'll give the military commandant an extract
The sick sailor's matter-of-fact description of the paperwork that follows a soldier's death at sea -- a log entry, then an official notice routed through Odessa to the dead man's home district -- is the only mechanism by which Gusev's family will ever learn what happened to him, since (loc 97) he admits he never wrote home.
- Toward a Characterization of the Peoples §19 Odessa
The major Black Sea port city, named here alongside Taganrog as a haunt of small-time Greek traders.
- The Naive Wood-Sprite §7 Odessa
The major Black Sea port city, here the setting of a medical congress at which Dr. Solovyov is said to have given himself airs.
- To M. I. Chaykovsky, 16 April 1890. Moscow. §3 The steamer on which I shall return to my homeland leaves Odessa on the 1st of August; it will bring me the post.
Chekhov's planned return route: a steamer sailing from the Black Sea port of Odessa out to Sakhalin and back, timed to depart 1 August -- the vessel that will carry outgoing mail to him as well as carry him home. In the event, Chekhov's actual return in December 1890 was by sea via Hong Kong, Singapore, and Ceylon rather than retracing the outbound overland route through Siberia; this letter reflects his travel plan as understood in April, before departure, not the itinerary he ultimately followed.
- To I. N. Sakharov, 6 February 1891. Moscow. §3 Odessa shop
The Black Sea port through which the donated books were evidently being routed toward Sakhalin; the unnamed "shop" ("магазин") is presumably a forwarding or shipping firm's office rather than a retail bookseller.