place

Ryazan

A provincial Russian city southeast of Moscow.

Reading notes

To A. S. Lazarev, 27–28 June 1887. Babkino. §4 Ryazan province
A province southeast of Moscow; Chekhov mentions it as a possible later destination, underscoring how open and improvised his summer travel plans were.
To A. I. Smagin, 4 January 1892. Petersburg. §4 I am offered a place to settle in Ryazan province, but that is the north -- cold and dull
Ryazan province, well north of the Poltava-province south Chekhov actually wants, is raised here only as a fallback he plainly dislikes -- "cold and dull" -- to be considered solely if nothing in the south turns up by February or March. The remark underscores how fixed Chekhov's preference for the south (and, by extension, for a property near Smagin) already was by this point in the correspondence.
In the Carriage §10 Ryazan
A provincial Russian city southeast of Moscow, the magistrate's point of departure -- a routine, unglamorous itinerary underscoring the story's everyday setting.