In his letters, Chekhov said that he had the city of Perm in mind as a model for the type of provincial city where this drama takes place. Research what life would have been like in a provincial Russian town at the turn of the century, and compare it to what Moscow would have been like.

Research the role that servants would have played in a Russian household at the turn of the century, between the emancipation of the serfs in 1858 and the Russian Revolution in 1917, and explain what the social customs tell about the roles of Ferapont and Aneisa in The Three Sisters.

Read some of the poetry of Russian writer Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov, as well as some biographical information about him. Use this to explain the significance of Solyony's observations that "I have a disposition like Lermontov's ... I even look...