While studying at the University, Chekhov attended lectures delivered by most talented doctors of XIX century, such as, Grigory Zakharyin and Nikolay Sklifosovsky. In the center of the board, there are five pictures. The first two of them show Zakharyin and Sklifosovsky. “I put Zakharyin on the same footing as Tolstoy, in terms of talent”, - Chekhov wrote in 1889. And the name of Sklifosovsky, Head of departmental clinic of surgery, was placed on a par with the name of Pirogov. He could perform operations for several days in a row, and wrote over 110 academic papers in various areas of surgery.
The next picture shows Chekhov among his course mates. However he found better friends not among the medical students but among the fellow students of his brother Nikolay who studied in the Moscow School of Art, Sculpture and Architecture. Particularly close relations Chekhov established with Isaac Levitan and Franz Shekhtel.
The last but one row of pictures on the display panel are the portraits of Chekhov’s contemporaries – VladImir Korolenko, VladImir Gilyarovsky, Nikolay Leikin. Korolenko was rated especially high by Chekhov. He said that he loved Korolenko praising him as a ‘rare heart’; — ‘I can swear that Korolenko is a very good man. It’s fun not only to walk by his side, but just to follow that guy’. Leikin published a magazine “Oskolki” (Fragments) in Saint-Petersburg where he offered work to Chekhov. Gilyarovsky worked in the incident report department of “Russkiye Vedomosti” (Russian Gazette) under the pen-name “Dyadya Gilyay”. He was on friendly terms with the entire Chekhov family.
The last row on the display panel are the pictures of magazine covers — “Razvlecheniye” (Entertainment), “BudIlnik” (Alarm-clock), “Strekoza” (Dragon-fly), “Oskolki” (Fragments). It was in those magazines that Chekhov as a student published his satirical articles, comic sketches, parodies, short stories, figure and caricature captions. “While at the university, I started cooperating with the magazines already in the first year, I had hundreds of stories published “, – he wrote.
