The Council of Elders of Tomsk requests to remove the “insulting” monument to Chekhov from the building of Tomsk Regional Administration. 

      It is a reminder that in the 1890s the writer stayed in Tomsk for a week on his way to Sakhalin. In his travel diary he mentioned: “Tomsk is not worth a brass farthing, being a most boring town with most boring people, lots of drunkards and dirt; dinners here are excellent, unlike women, who are harsh by touch”.

      On August 20, 2004 a bronze two-meter monument to Anton Chekhov was set up on the embankment of Tom' River – next to the regional administration and restaurant Slavic Bazaar where the writer had dinners. The monument was created by Tomsk sculptor Leonti Usov. 

      Anton Chekhov is depicted in a caricature way: wearing his hat aslant, moving-down eye-glasses, barefoot, and having disproportionately large feet. The inscription of the pedestal reads: “Anton Pavlovich in Tomsk as seen by a drunkard, who has never read Chekhov’s Kashtanka and is lying in a ditch.