To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 20 June 1890. Amur, parokhod "Ermak".

Dating and addressee. 20 June 1890, written aboard the steamer "Yermak" while descending the Amur River, during Chekhov’s overland and river journey across Siberia to the penal colony on Sakhalin Island (he departed Moscow in late April 1890 and would reach Sakhalin in early July). The addressee is Alexey Nikolaevich Plescheev (1825–1893), poet, translator, and at this date the literary editor of Severny vestnik ("The Northern Herald"), one of Chekhov’s regular correspondents and an older friend/mentor figure in the literary world. The letter carries an envelope-address block (the Russian source marks this "На обороте:" / "On the reverse:") addressed to Plescheev at a Warsaw-line railway station outside Moscow, confirming this was mailed rather than merely drafted.

A short, high-spirited travel note. Chekhov reports the end of the overland (horse-drawn) leg of the journey and his relief at returning to ordinary comforts — clean linen, a washed face, boots put away — joking that "the Moscow rogue has turned back into a gentleman." He describes the steamer’s vibration making writing difficult, calls the Amur’s banks beautiful but too wild/empty for his taste, and reflects on having just crossed Transbaikalia, which he calls "a superb region," coining the line that Siberian poetry begins at Lake Baikal while everything before it was prose. The letter closes with an embrace and bows to Plescheev’s family, signed "Yours, A. Chekhov," followed by a repeated date and the envelope address.