To V. A. Gilyarovsky, 7 July 1890. Nikolayevsk.

It carries a full letter’s formal apparatus: an opening instruction/observation, a closing wish of health ("Будь здоров"), regards to a third party’s family, and a signed, affectionate closing ("Твой А. Чехов" — "Yours, A. Chekhov"), which is not how the telegrams in this corpus close (compare, a genuine wire: bare business content, no salutation, no closing courtesy, elliptical preposition-dropping grammar). None of that wire-economy grammar appears here; the sentences are complete and unclipped. dateline, then a single paragraph of content, then closing regards, then signature.

Written 7 July 1890 from Nikolaevsk(-on-Amur), near the mouth of the Amur River in the Russian Far East, during Chekhov’s overland/river journey across Siberia to Sakhalin Island. He is about to board the steamer "Baikal," which will carry him the next day across (or into) the Tatar Strait toward Sakhalin — placing this letter in the final short leg of the outbound journey, just before his arrival on the island (his documented Sakhalin arrival is commonly dated 11 July 1890 by the old-style calendar used at the time, i.e. this letter falls only days before landfall).

Content is minimal by design: Chekhov asks Gilyarovsky to keep the letter so that its postmarks can later be examined as a record of the postal route it travels on its way back to Moscow — a piece of the same curious, observational habit of mind that produced his systematic documentation of Sakhalin itself. He notes he is posting it in the ship’s mailbox aboard the "Baikal" and restates the date. The letter closes with ordinary personal warmth: a wish for good health, and regards to Gilyarovsky’s wife and daughter.