The Malachite Box nuggets. The story of the brothers is continued in "The Snake Trail" (alternative translation: "The Serpent's Trail"), published in 1939. In this "skaz", a young the factory worker Stepan meets the legendary Mistress of the Copper Mountain. He passes her tests and is rewarded by a malachite casket filled with jewellery for his betrothed, Nastyona. Stepan dies, leaving the Malachite Casket to his widow Nastyona. Their daughter Tanyushka likes to play with it. With black hair and green eyes, Tanyushka does not look like her mother at all, as if she was born to different parents. When she grows up,
The Malachite Box by critics and enthusiastically received by readers, including the general populace and the more sophisticated Soviet intelligentsia. Bazhov turned into one of the most famous writers in the Soviet Union. Strangers would greet him on the streets. The critics agreed that "never has the labour of miners, stone-cutters, teemers been celebrate in such a way, neither in verses, nor in prose", and that Bazhov managed to show the essence of the professional skill of the miners. Mikhail Batin complimented its uniqueness, and novelty in the contents and in the form. Favourable reviews on "The Malachite Box" appeared in "Uralsky Rabochy"