To K. S. Barantsevich, 28 January 1890. Petersburg.

A brief note of farewell, written in Petersburg on the eve of Chekhov’s departure for Sakhalin. He had arrived in the capital that January to attend to final business and social calls before setting out on the journey across Siberia to the penal colony – the expedition that would occupy him through 1890 and produce Sakhalin Island. The addressee, Kazimir Stanislavovich Barantsevich (1851–1927), was a prose writer and a friend from Chekhov’s Petersburg literary circle; the two corresponded occasionally in this period.

The letter itself is little more than a calling-card: Chekhov came by in person to say goodbye, and this note follows up in writing, promising a reunion "probably in December" – when he expected to be back from Sakhalin – and asking Barantsevich to write to him (presumably en route or from the island) and to pass on greetings to his family. There is no further content beyond this: no news, no literary discussion, nothing about the trip itself. The brevity is circumstantial (a note dashed off amid last-minute departure errands), not elliptical grammar or telegram form – the sentences are complete, idiomatic Russian, with a term of endearment ("голубчик" / "my dear fellow") and a full epistolary closing ("Ваш" / "Yours") and signature, none of which a telegram would carry.