Meanwhile in the spring of 1892 there began to be fears about the crops.
These apprehensions were soon confirmed. An unfortunate summer was followed
by a hard autumn and winter, in which many districts were famine-stricken.
Side by side with the Government relief of the starving population there
was a widespread movement for organizing relief, in which various societies
and private persons took part. Chekhov naturally was drawn into this
movement. The provinces of Nizhni-Novogorod and Voronezh were in the
greatest distress, and in the former of these two provinces, Yegorov, an
old friend of Chekhov's Voskresensk days, was a district captain (Zemsky
Natchalnik). Chekhov wrote to Yegorov, got up a subscription fund among his
acquaintance, and finally set off himself for Nizhni-Novogorod. As the
starving peasants were selling their horses and cattle for next to nothing,
or even slaughtering them for food, it was feared that as spring came on
there would be no beasts to plough with, so that the coming year threatened
to be one of famine also.

Chekhov organized a scheme for buying up the horses and feeding them till
the spring at the expense of a relief fund, and then, as soon as field
labour was possible, distributing them among the peasants who were without
horses.

After visiting the province of Nizhni-Novogorod, Chekhov went with Suvorin
to Voronezh. But this expedition was not a successful one. He was revolted
by the ceremonious dinners with which he was welcomed as an author, while
the whole province was suffering from famine. Moreover travelling with
Suvorin tied him down and hindered his independent action. Chekhov longed
for intense personal activity such as he displayed later in his campaign
against the cholera.