The portrait of the Cossack Timofey Yashchik, who was a bodyguard of the Empress Maria Feodorovna, dates back to 1920. The artist Alexander Gefter painted it with tempera and gouache whitewash. Some researchers suggested that the author of this work was Ilya Repin. However, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation conducted an expert examination, which did not confirm this hypothesis. The expert’s conclusion stated,

This portrait was given as a gift to the Kuban Cossack Host by Sergey Galitsky, a businessperson and philanthropist from Krasnodar. The ataman Nikolai Doluda handed it over to the general director of the Museum named after
E. D. Felitsyn to be included into the collection “Regalia and relics of the Kuban Cossack Host”.

Timofey Yashchik was born in 1878 in Novominskaya village of the Yeisk department in the Kuban region. In 1900, he was conscripted to serve in the first Yeisk regiment, which was then located in Tiflis (modern Tbilisi). Four years later, Yashchik was enlisted to His Majesty’s Own Cossack Escort, into the Second Kuban ‘sotnia’ (Cossack cavalry squadron). In 1907, he resigned, and in 1912, he was conscripted to serve there again. Then Nicholas II chose him from many applicants to be the bodyguard of the members of the Imperial family. Timofey Yashchik served in this position for two years. Since 1916, he became the second personal bodyguard of Empress Maria Feodorovna, the mother of Nicholas II. After the October revolution, the widowed Empress left Russia and went to England, and from there to her historical homeland — Denmark. The Cossack went with Maria Feodorovna. According to the stories of people who knew Yashchik well, he was so devoted to the Empress that at night he slept on the floor at the door of her bedroom on his chokha.

Maria Feodorovna died in 1928. After that, Yashchik decided not to return to Russia. He received a small inheritance from the empress, opened a store, and married a Danish woman. Timofey Yashcik died in 1946. He was buried together with his wife at the Russian cemetery in Copenhagen.