А. П. Чехов
Смерть чиновника
Free
1883
The Death of a Clerk
A clerk sneezes on a general, and cannot survive having done it.
Fifteen Russian classics you can actually read
Not adapted, not simplified — the real texts, in a reader where every word is glossed, every sentence has an English translation a tap away, and the words you meet are graded so you always know what a story will cost you. Seven of the fifteen are free, with no account; the rest are part of the €5/month library.
Not sure where to start, or how many words you need first? Read how much Russian you need to read Chekhov — the honest numbers, measured on these very texts. The full ledger, book by book, is at Russian classics, counted, and whether you hold a particular book yet is answerable in forty words at can you read it.
А. П. Чехов
Толстый и тонкий
Free
1883
Fat and Thin
Two childhood friends meet at a station — until they establish which of them holds the higher rank.
А. П. Чехов
Хамелеон
Free
1884
Chameleon
A police inspector changes his mind about a dog — depending on whose dog it turns out to be. The classic on rank-worship.
А. П. Чехов
Лошадиная фамилия
Free
1885
A Horsey Name
The general has toothache, and the name of the man who can cure it is “something to do with horses”… The most famous joke in Russian.
А. П. Чехов
Злоумышленник
Free
1885
The Malefactor
A peasant has been unscrewing nuts from the railway line — “for fishing weights”. An interrogation that is funny and then frightening.
А. П. Чехов
Студент
Free
1894
The Student
A cold evening, a fire, a story about the apostle Peter — and suddenly everything connects. Chekhov's own favourite.
А. П. Чехов
Ванька
Free
1886
Vanka
Nine-year-old Vanka writes a letter “to grandfather, in the village”. The shortest and the sharpest story on the shelf — and thick with village words: save it for later, not for first.
А. П. Чехов
Мальчики
1887
The Boys
Volodya comes home for the holidays with a mysterious friend. The escape to America is set for tomorrow.
А. П. Чехов
Спать хочется
1888
Sleepy
A thirteen-year-old nursemaid rocks somebody else's baby, night after sleepless night. One of the most frightening things Chekhov wrote.
А. П. Чехов
Дама с собачкой
1899
The Lady with the Dog
A holiday affair in Yalta that turns out, against everyone's intention, to be the central event of two lives.
Л. Н. Толстой
После бала
1903
After the Ball
A ball, a mazurka, and what the same man was doing at dawn.
Н. В. Гоголь
Нос
1836
The Nose
Major Kovalyov's nose leaves his face and is seen about Petersburg in the uniform of a State Councillor.
Н. В. Гоголь
Шинель
1842
The Overcoat
A small man and his great overcoat. The founding story of Petersburg clerkdom, and of Russian prose after it.
Ф. М. Достоевский
Белые ночи
1848
White Nights
Four white nights and a morning. A dreamer meets Nastenka on the embankment and speaks to another person for the first time in his life.
И. С. Тургенев
Первая любовь
1860
First Love
Sixteen years old, a dacha outside Moscow, a princess next door — and the discovery of who she really loves.
Level 1 is where most learners should begin: short Chekhov, a thousand words or so each, and all of it free. Level 3 is Gogol, Dostoevsky and Turgenev at full length.
Open the reader — the free stories are on the shelf the moment it loads.