To S. N. Filippov, 7 February 1890. Moscow.

it has a proper salutation ("Dearest Sergei Nikitovich!"), a grammatically complete body in ordinary epistolary register, and a name-and-initial signature ("Yours, A. Chekhov") – none of the markers of the corpus’s genuine telegrams (bare surname-only signature, missing prepositions/articles, no salutation or closing). It is short simply because Chekhov had little to report.

Chekhov has just arrived in Moscow (from Petersburg, where he had been seeing Suvorin’s circle and preparing for the Sakhalin journey he would depart on in April 1890). A. S. Suvorin, the newspaper publisher and Chekhov’s closest correspondent and patron of these years, has also just arrived and is staying at the Slavic Bazaar hotel. Chekhov reports his and Suvorin’s plans for the next two days: a theater outing to see Racine’s Phèdre, and a ball at the Moscow Society of Art and Literature (a private arts club founded in 1888) that Chekhov expects to find tedious ("yawning at"). The letter is entirely practical in purpose – it tells Filippov the windows during which Suvorin will not be reachable at his hotel, presumably so Filippov, who was angling for Suvorin’s help finding newspaper work, can plan when to call.