Chekhov’s trip to the Crimea in September 1898 was significantly different from his previous visits to the peninsula in 1889 and 1894: the writer’s health deteriorated and a creative crisis began. Furthermore, on 12 October 1898 Chekhov’s father, Pavel Yegorovich died.
Chekhov wrote: “A master gear fell out from the Melikhovo mechanism, and I think that for the mother and sister, the life in Melikhovo lost its point, and I”ll have to make another nest for them”. Thus the decision was made to sell the estate in Melikhovo and move to Yalta. There Chekhov got rapidly involved in the public life of the city and made many friends. Among them, with the owner of a book and tobacco shop on the embankment – “Russkaya Izbushka”(Small log hut), Isaac SinAni. 26 September 1898, Chekhov, together with Sinani, went to see an “estate for sale” and soon, mainly attracted by the “wildness” of the landscape purchased a 2-storey house with a red roof, two rooms downstairs and two – upstairs, in Kuchuk-Koy village. He called it a “curious estate”, and never lived there.
Sinani showed another land plot in Verkhnyaya Autka to Chekhov - his future place of settlement in Yalta: “a small center of the world with a marvelous view of the sea and mountains”. Verkhnyaya Autka where Chekhov selected a plot of land for constructing a house, was outside the city boundaries in all senses – administrative, resort and cultural. Most residents were the Greeks mainly engaged in winegrowing and tobacco cultivation, and the location was out of reach of the blessings of civilization available in Yalta at that time. The plot of land was sold to Chekhov for 4000 roubes, with one thousand payable on buying and another three at any time later, with no interest.
In the letter to his brother Ivan dated 20 October 1898, Chekhov wrote:
Chekhov wrote: “A master gear fell out from the Melikhovo mechanism, and I think that for the mother and sister, the life in Melikhovo lost its point, and I”ll have to make another nest for them”. Thus the decision was made to sell the estate in Melikhovo and move to Yalta. There Chekhov got rapidly involved in the public life of the city and made many friends. Among them, with the owner of a book and tobacco shop on the embankment – “Russkaya Izbushka”(Small log hut), Isaac SinAni. 26 September 1898, Chekhov, together with Sinani, went to see an “estate for sale” and soon, mainly attracted by the “wildness” of the landscape purchased a 2-storey house with a red roof, two rooms downstairs and two – upstairs, in Kuchuk-Koy village. He called it a “curious estate”, and never lived there.
Sinani showed another land plot in Verkhnyaya Autka to Chekhov - his future place of settlement in Yalta: “a small center of the world with a marvelous view of the sea and mountains”. Verkhnyaya Autka where Chekhov selected a plot of land for constructing a house, was outside the city boundaries in all senses – administrative, resort and cultural. Most residents were the Greeks mainly engaged in winegrowing and tobacco cultivation, and the location was out of reach of the blessings of civilization available in Yalta at that time. The plot of land was sold to Chekhov for 4000 roubes, with one thousand payable on buying and another three at any time later, with no interest.
In the letter to his brother Ivan dated 20 October 1898, Chekhov wrote:
