Музей книги Чехова, Literary museum in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russia

The Chekhov Book Museum in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk occupies a modern building opened in 2013, with exhibition halls, storage rooms, a lecture room and a parking area. Its collection of about 4,000 main-fund items and 10,000 auxiliary items includes genuine belongings of the Chekhov family, such as a travel bag, medical needles, a straight razor and sugar tongs, plus foreign editions of "The Island of Sakhalin" from Switzerland, the USA, Germany, Japan, Bulgaria, China, Finland, France and Italy.

The writer traveled to Sakhalin in 1890 to investigate and record the conditions faced by exiled prisoners. The museum was established in 1995 to preserve his legacy and the findings from that journey.

Since 1998 the museum has held an annual conference, the Chekhov Readings, whose papers are published in collections of the same name; their main themes are Sakhalin in Chekhov's era and the literary-historical study of his work. The museum also keeps a collection of foreign editions of "The Island of Sakhalin" issued in Switzerland, the USA, Germany, Japan, Bulgaria, China, Finland, France and Italy.

The museum stands in the centre of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, in a building of 1,884 square metres that opened on 12 February 2013. Its halls hold both the permanent display and temporary exhibitions, with a recreation area, entrance zone, parking and buffet. The earlier building, styled after Chekhov's house with a mezzanine, had only 72 square metres of exhibition space and 8 square metres of storage.

The museum holds a collection of foreign editions of "The Island of Sakhalin" published as separate volumes in Switzerland, the United States, Germany, Japan, Bulgaria, China, Finland, France and Italy. Its graphics and painting fund also keeps works by Chekhov's relatives Sergei Mikhailovich and Sergei Sergeyevich Chekhov.