The family's new home, rented from a merchant, was a large, two- storey brick building at the crossroads of Monastery Street and Fair Lane on the edge of town.5 Upstairs were the bedrooms and sitting room, with the kitchen and dining room downsta rs, next to Pavel Chekhov's grocery store (advertised by a large black sign, with lettering in gold leaf, hanging over the door). Downstairs there were also quarters for Andriushka and Gavriushka, the two young boys apprenticed to work in the shop for five years, without salary but provided with food^and clothes.
Pavel Chekhov's store, Taganrog
It was a full house. Chekhov's widowed aunt, Fenichka, later moved in with her son Alexei, also taking a room on the ground floor, while two young lodgers shared a room upstairs. One of these lodgers, Ivan Pavlovsky, was later arrested for political activities, and led a colourful life, having worked as a hairdresser in New York before being deported со Siberia. When he was finally amnestied, he left Paris where he had been supported by Turgenev, and came to visit Chekhov at his Melikhovo estate. Chekhov was very interested to meet Pavlovsky again, as he had written on the Dreyfus case, an affair in which he himself took a passionate interest.6 The four windows of the upstairs
floor on one side of the building looked out to the sea less than a mile away. The Chekhov children and their cousin would spend hours watching the triangular-shaped sails of fishing boats on the horizon and steamships gradually emerging from the distance, identifiable first by the line of smoke from their chimneys. A relative of Chekhov's mother arrived by steamship once and the whole family was given lunch on board, where they watched sailors cutting open a sturgeon and taking out the caviar to serve with spring onions. Chekhov's father was something of a gourmand; he liked to make his own mustard and zakuski, and was apparently particularly fond of caviar (which reminds one of Chekhov's late story 'In the Ravine', which begins with a description of a village best known for a sexton who once ate four pounds of caviar during a funeral feast).7
Down the road from the Chekhov's house was the majestic Alexandravsky Square, designed by Campignoni in 1810 and built on a marshy area overgrown with rushes. A large, rectangular open space, framed at both ends by an elegant semi-circular arcade with Doric columns in empire style, it was built to provide the main trading area for the town. Behind the columns were the shops that made up the 'new bazaar', teplac.ng the old one in the square next to the cathedral. St Mitrofan's Church (the church where Chekhov's father directed the choir for several years) was first built here, but had to be moved when its foundations collapsed. In 1960 a Socialist Real:st-style statue of a pensive Chekhov, book in hand, sitting with his arm resting on his knee was erected in this square on a large black marble plinth to mark the centenary of h;s birth.8 He might have balked at the s'te, for this was wnere executions were held during his childhood. The fanrly could see condemned prisoners waging past cheir house to the scaffold, each wearing a board on his chest detailing his crme. Chekhov's mother would cross herself when prisoners passed the house, and would viiit the prison every year on the holiday of the coronation of the Tsar. One prisoner had been sitting in the prison for sixteen years, and had been completely forgotten about. His crime had apparently been to collect money to build a church without permission.9
Taganrog was still a thriving port when Chekhov was born, with an array of foreign (British, French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, German, D?nish, Persian, American, even Paraguayan) consulates and a highly cosmopolitan population of about 20,000 that was dominated by Greeics and Italians. Taganrog wheat was considered the best in Europe and exported in huge quantities to make Italian pasta and British biscuits. The volume of its trade made ft a sei ous rival to Odessa, and it was certainly more sophisticated and European than nearby Rostov-on-Don. There was a theatre (which boasted one of the oldest professional companies in Russia) and an orchestra wY ich gave open-air concerts in the town park until midnignt on summer evenings. Once the wealthy fore1 gn merchants had built their smart houses on the town's best streets, they wanted entertainment, and so they paid impresai os to bring in prima donnas. The foundation of an Italian opera company in 1863 led to the building of a new theatre a few years later, with the aid of Italian sponsorship.11 Its red velvet interior, with the habitual cloud of mist above the chandelier, later came into Chekhov's nrnd whenever he described a provincial theatre n his stories.
Taganrog could also boast the oldest educational institution in southern Russia: Chekhov's alma mater, the Taganrog gymnasium, provided a rigorous education with a pronounced bias towards the classics. There were about 130 such schools in existence when Chekhov was a pupil, their highly conservative curriculum closely monitored to prevent any influx of dangerous political ideas. The study of Greek and Latin was actually increased by government decree while Chekhov was at school, and ended up occupying almost half of his weekly timetable. Pupils at the school had to wear the standard blue and grey uniform, with starched collars, and suffer inspectors peering in through the round observation windows in their classroom doors as they patrolled the corridors. Chekhov was probably more than once spotted daydreaming as his desk was at the back and closest to the window - not the one in the door, of course, but the one which faced outside.12
As long as Taganrog's trade flourished, Chekhov's father stood a chance of earning a decent living. His grocery shop sold everything from rhubarb to castor oil, and was open all hours. The hours of misery which Chekhov spent in his childhood serving behind the counter have become the stuff of legend, but he got to see a wide array of people. Perhaps the most colourful visitors to his father's shop were the two monks from Mount Athos, who came to Taganrog twice a year to send out icons printed on calico all over Russia in the hope that people would make donations to the island's Russian monasteries. Father Feooosy, a former peasant, and Father Filaret, a retired soldier, enjoyed the break from routine which their trips to Taganrog afforded them. They particularly enjoyed thei visits to Pavel Chekhov's shop, during which they would talk in glowing terms about life on Mount Athos. Neither wou'd drink in the presence of the other, but their strict vows were quickly suspended when they came into the shop alone. Chekhov got used to seeing drunk monks staggering around the shop when he was growing up. Far less amusing was the service conducted in the shop to bless the olive oil that a rat had fallen into. Pavel Egorovich set up an aitar with the family icons on his shop counter, and ordered his children and the apprentices to attend while the local priest said the requisite prayers which would supposedly purify the oil. It was not the best exercise in public relations, and most of Pavel Egorovich's main clients vowed never to buy anything from him ever again.13
There was certainly enough justification for Chekhov's complaint that he had no childhood in his childhood, as he put it, having been made to work in his father's grocery shop like his brothers, sing at interminable church services and endure frequent beatings. Although he later forgave his father, the 'lies and despotism' of his childhood left an indelible mark. The death of his two-year-old sister Evgenia when he was eleven must also have been traumatic for the family. But there were also opportunities for Anton and his brothers to get up to various pranks, some of which have been recorded for posterity in the various memoirs that have been published. There were the hot air balloons made from large sheets of cigarette paper, for example, which would be filled with coal gas. This was a somewhat risky enterprise, since the source of the gas was the 'amp that stood on the corner in front of the family's house. Until their activities were discovered and reported to the police, Chekhov and his brothers would gather at first light and fill their balloons with a rubber hose attached to the gas jet. Chekhov had a particular reputation for practical jokes. His cousin Alexei recalled him persuading the school janitor to let him borrow a human skull and some bones on one occasion. The plan was for Anton to give his sister Masha (Maria) a fright by putting them in her bed and covering them up with a blanket. When Masha came home, she was duly informed that a friend had come from Moscow and was in her bed resting; on discovering the bones she promptly fainted. Chekhov's devout Aunt