To N. A. Leikin, 5 June 1890. Irkutsk.

5 June 1890. Irkutsk.

5 June 90, Irkutsk.

Greetings, most kind Nikolai Alexandrovich! I send you a heartfelt hello from Irkutsk, from the depths of Siberia. I arrived in Irkutsk last night and am very glad I did, since I was worn out on the road and had grown homesick for family and friends, to whom I haven’t written in a long while. Well, then, what’s interesting to write to you about? I’ll start with the fact that the road is extraordinarily long. From Tyumen to Irkutsk I covered more than three thousand versts by horse. From Tyumen to Tomsk I fought with the cold and with the flooding rivers; the cold was terrible, on Ascension Day there was frost and snow was falling, so that I only got to take off my sheepskin coat and felt boots in Tomsk, at the hotel. As for the floods, that was an Egyptian plague. The rivers overflowed their banks and for tens of versts flooded the meadows, and with them the roads; time and again I had to trade the carriage for a boat, and the boats didn’t come free either – each one cost a pood of blood, since you had to sit on the bank for whole days at a stretch, in the rain and the cold wind, waiting, waiting... From Tomsk to Krasnoyarsk, a desperate war with impassable mud. My God, it’s frightening even to remember! So many times I had to repair my carriage, walk on foot, curse, climb out of the carriage, climb back in, and so on; there were times I rode six to ten hours from station to station, while repairing the carriage took ten to fifteen hours each time. From Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk, the most terrible heat and dust. To all this add hunger, dust in the nose, eyes sticking shut from sleeplessness, the constant fear that something on the carriage (it’s my own) would break, and boredom... But nevertheless I’m still content, and I thank God for giving me the strength and the chance to set out on this journey... I’ve seen a great deal and lived through a great deal, and all of it is extraordinarily interesting and new to me – not as a writer, but simply as a human being. The Yenisei, the taiga, the relay stations, the drivers, the wild country, the game birds, the physical torments caused by the discomforts of the road, the pleasures gained from rest – all of it together is so good that I can’t even describe it. The simple fact that for more than a month, day and night, I was out in the open air – that alone is curious and healthy; for a whole month, every day, I watched the sun rise from start to finish.

From here I’m going on to Baikal, then to Chita, to Sretensk, where I’ll trade the horses for a steamer, and sail down the Amur to my destination. I’m not hurrying, since I don’t wish to reach Sakhalin before the first of July.

If you should think of writing to me, here’s my address: Alexandrovsky Post, on Sakhalin Island. The mail goes to Sakhalin through Siberia every day.

You asked me in your last letter why I turned to Golike rather than to you for the money ("Motley Stories"). Have mercy, my dear sir – after all, you yourself wrote and told me earlier to apply for the money specifically to Golike, and not to you. Still, it’s all the same. Be well, be happy, be at peace... What’s the weather like with you, I wonder?

My regards to Praskovya Nikiforovna and to Fedya. Until we meet again.

Your Homo Sachaliensis

A. Chekhov.

The road through Siberia is entirely safe. There is no robbery.