Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchTO HIS SISTER.IRKUTSK, June 6, 1890.Greetings to you, dear mother, Ivan, Masha and Misha, and all ofyou!In my last long letter I wrote to you that the mountains nearKrasnoyarsk are like the Donets Ridge, but that’s not true; when Ilooked at them from the street I saw they were like high walls surroundingthe city, and I was vividly reminded of the Caucasus. Andwhen towards evening I left the town and was crossing the Yenissey,I saw on the other bank mountains that were exactly like theCaucasus, as misty and dreamy. The Yenissey is a broad, swift, windingriver, beautiful, finer than the Volga. And the ferry across it iswonderful, ingeniously constructed, moving against the current; Iwill tell you when I am home about the construction of it. And sothe mountains and the Yenissey are the first things original and newthat I have met in Siberia. The mountains and the Yenissey havegiven me sensations which have made up to me a hundredfold forall the trials and troubles of the journey, and which have made mecall Levitan a fool for being so stupid as not to come with me.The Taiga stretches unbroken from Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk. Thetrees are not bigger than in Sokolniki, but not one driver knowshow far it goes. There is no end to be seen to it. It stretches forhundreds of versts. No one knows who or what is in the Taiga, andit only happens in winter that people come through the Taiga fromthe far north with reindeer for bread. When you get to the top of amountain and look down, you see a mountain before you, thenanother, mountains at the sides too—and all thickly covered withforest. It makes one feel almost frightened. That’s the second thingoriginal and new.From Krasnoyarsk it began to be hot and dusty. The heat wasterrible. My sheepskin and cap lie buried away. The dust is in mymouth, in my nose, down my neck—tfoo! We were approachingIrkutsk—we had to cross the Angara by ferry. As though to mock usa high wind sprang up. My military companions and I, after dreamingfor ten days of a bath, dinner, and sleep, stood on the bank and176