In the 1950s, Ural stonecutter Vitaly Konev created the box “The Bailiff”s Bootsoles” based on the fairy tale of the same name by Pavel Bazhov. This tale was included in the collection with one common character — the Mistress of the Copper Mountain, or the Malachite Mistress. Researchers believe that this image embodies popular ideas about the forces of nature that protect honest, kind, and hardworking people, and punish the greedy and cruel ones.

The main anti-hero of the fairy tale “The Bailiff”s Bootsoles” was Severyan Kondratyevich — a bailiff of a Ural mining plant, who was sent there as punishment for his cruel treatment of serfs. In the new place, the former landowner did not part with his old habits:

In the tale, the Mistress of the Copper Mountain twice warns Severyan: “Have pity on your young workers. You beat them so hard, only their soles will be left! ” But the bailiff did not listen and began to commit even more atrocious acts. Then the Malachite Mistress turned him into a stone block, on which only the outlines of the his bootsoles remained. They are depicted on the lid of the box displayed in the museum.

Vitaly Konev carved this box from Orsk jasper — a multicolored stone that was mined at Polkovnik Mountain. Items made of it are now stored in many museums around the world — the Hermitage, the Russian State Museum, the Louvre.

The lid of the box consists of two plates — slices of the same stone. The pattern on them truly resembles red shoe soles outlined with white irregular lines: this is not a handmade, but a natural jasper pattern.

Another box with the same name is presented in the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Stone-Cutting and Jewelry Art History. Chief artist of the Sverdlovsk plant “Russkiye Samotsvety” (Russian Gemstones) Yevgeny Vasilyev made it. In his work, the footprints of the bailiff’s bootsoles were made on a light pink jasper.