The photo depicts Elizaveta Gustavovna — the wife of the Krasnoyarsk owner of gold mines Alexander Shchegolev. They were among the richest people in the Yenisei province. In 1909, a correspondent of the newspaper ‘Krasnoyarets’ reported:

There is an interesting legend that tells how the Shchegolevs created their fortune. The founder of the dynasty was Isidor Shchegolev, Elizaveta’s father-in-law. When he was young, he served as a clerk for a gold miner in the mines. In his spare time, he traveled around taiga in the hope of finding a gold deposit, but the search did not bring the desired results. One day, tired, he decided to take a rest stop: he put up a tent, had a snack, and lay down to rest. And then an old man appeared to him, who pointed to the place where Isidor Shchegolev was lying and said: ‘Get up and dig here.’

When he woke up, Shchegolev marveled at the vision, but still began to dig in the indicated place. At a depth of half a meter, he discovered a rich gold vein. Falling on his knees, the future merchant fervently thanked God for his benevolence and immediately made a vow that if he got rich, he would build churches, help the poor and the needy. Soon Shchegolev became rich, became a merchant of the first guild, and a hereditary honorary citizen of Krasnoyarsk.

He kept his promise: he built churches, almshouses, orphanages, and schools and maintained them at his own expense. Thanks to the patronage of Isidor Shchegolev, in the middle of the 19th century, a Cathedral in the name of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God was built in Krasnoyarsk. After the merchant’s death, the family business was taken over by his sons — Grigory, Alexander, Dmitry, and Innokenty.

Charity work did not stop either. Isidore’s widow Tatyana Shchegoleva donated large sums for the construction of a seminary in Krasnoyarsk and the creation of the Krasnoyarsk two-class vocational school. Financial and material assistance was provided to the institutions of the city by Alexander and Elizabeth Shchegolev as well. In particular, they were the trustees of an orphanage created with the financial assistance of Tatyana Shchegoleva.

Other patrons in the city upheld this tradition. Thanks to the activities of the rich residents of the Yenisei province, hospitals were built, schools opened, and cultural life blossomed. According to researchers, in the second half of the 19th century, charity became popular under the influence of the socio-political evolution of the country, as well as state policy that encouraged good deeds.