Goloshes: the Chekhov code?

Many learned articles have been written about Chekhov, but I don't remember any that pointed out the startling ubiquity of the galosh in his fiction. Before drawing up a detailed theory on the matter, I need to consult this well-informed community on whether the goloshes of nineteenth century Russia - not that any of you, except possibly Skitt, have first-hand knowledge of that milieu - are the same sort of thing my Uncle George used to wear in the sixties, or something quite different - a form of spat, for example - for which the word "galosh" might be a compromise translation.

Re-reading Chekhov over Christmas, I noticed that he can hardly write a page without mentioning goloshes. Some of the incidences are run-of-the-mill enough; for example:
Kukushkin went away at last, and as I listened to the shuffle of his leather goloshes, I felt greatly tempted to fling after him, as a parting shot, some coarse word of abuse, but I restrained myself.
or
She sits down on the floor, cleans the goloshes, and thinks how nice it would be to put her head into a big deep golosh and have a little nap in it.
And haven't we all? But Chekhov also intrudes the golosh - compulsively, I feel - into moments of high drama:
She went in to him without ringing, and as she was taking off her goloshes in the entry she heard a sound as of something running softly in the studio, with a feminine rustle of skirts.
or
Kovalenko seized him from behind by the collar and gave him a push, and Byelikov rolled downstairs, thudding with his goloshes.

or
In the dim light of the lamp they could clearly see, besides the white covering, new rubber goloshes, and everything about it was uncanny and sinister: the dark walls, and the silence, and the goloshes, and the stillness of the dead body.
I can't think of another writer who refers to goloshes at such moments.

Goloshes seem to carry a romantic significance too:
To stand watching her as she drank her coffee in the morning or ate her lunch, to hold her fur coat for her in the hall, and to put the goloshes on her little feet while she rested her hand on my shoulder; then to wait till the hall porter rang up for me, to meet her at the door, cold, and rosy, powdered with the snow, to listen to her brief exclamations about the frost or the cabman if only you knew how much all that meant to me!
and
Anisim arrived three days before the wedding, rigged out in new clothes from top to toe. He had dazzling india-rubber goloshes, and instead of a cravat wore a red cord with little balls on it.
I can't imagine a present-day bride being impressed by goloshes, however dazzling. The goloshes my uncle wore - never dazzling, I admit - earned him no more prestige in our family than the wellingtons he wore to his allotment. But for Chekhov, goloshes are markers of prosperity:
When her mother died, her father, Pyotr Leontyitch, a teacher of drawing and writing in the high school, had taken to drink, impoverishment had followed, and the boys had not had boots or goloshes . . .
or
Afraid, vain man, that people would see that his feet were bare under his goloshes, he had drawn the tops of some old boots up round the calves of his legs.
or
Now isn't it revolting? Isn't it disgusting? ... I have no goloshes.
I can't think imagine anyone British voicing such a sentiment, even in the nineteenth century. In fact, I'm starting to wonder whether this is all a code. Could there be a bestseller in it, in the manner of Dan Brown? Do goloshes have a mystical significance that escapes the casual reader?
And all at once the golosh grows, swells, fills up the whole room . . . .

or
And, as though in his honour, it was dull, rainy weather on the day of his funeral, and we all wore goloshes.
or
Possibly because I had run out into the street without my cap and goloshes I was in a high fever.
Has anyone else noticed this idiosyncrasy, or is it just me?

Peasemarch.