To A. S. Suvorin, 22 January 1892. Moscow.

Dated 22 January 1892, from Moscow, to Alexei Sergeyevich Suvorin.

Chekhov reports back on his relief trip to Nizhny Novgorod province during the 1891-92 famine: the newspapers have not exaggerated the famine’s severity, the government’s aid is decent, the zemstvo is either incompetent or dishonest, and private charity has amounted to almost nothing (54 poods of dried bread sent from Petersburg for 20,000 people). He describes a fierce blizzard on the road, his stay with the governor Baranov (breakfast, dinner, a ride to the station in the governor’s own horses), and the freedom private initiative has to act unobstructed by the local administration. At home he finds the proofs of "Kashtanka" and is dismayed by the illustrations, offering to pay the artist extra just to be rid of them. He praises the Nizhny Novgorod peasantry, notes an outbreak of anthrax on the Moscow merchant Shelaputin’s estate, and closes asking Suvorin to arrange a meeting before their trip to Bobrov, plus a postscript request to have Alexei Alexeyevich (Suvorin’s son and business associate) send on an article about petroleum by the mining engineer Batsevich.