The Malachite Box them are keepers of hidden underground riches. The Mistress, described as either a beautiful green-eyed woman in malachite gown or a lizard with the crown on her head, is the keeper of gemstones. Poloz is the master of every existing piece of gold. The miners believed that if a gold-bearing lode disappeared, it meant that the Great Snake moved it to a different place. Bazhov introduced numerous daughters of Poloz, including Golden Hair from the tale of the same name. The relationship between Poloz and the Mistress is unclear. Bazhov commented that he asked some story-tellers about it, but they
The Malachite Box and trauma, which Bazhov endured between January 1937 and 1938, and noted that "The Malachite Box" "is filled with unprecedented for Soviet (and especially children's) literature horror". At that time Bazhov was fired from Sverdlovsk Publishing House, where he had worked since 1931, and expelled from the Communist Party for "glorification of people's enemies" in his recent book. His past as a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and a seminary teacher was also questionable. He was once summoned for interrogation by NKVD, but luckily his investigator was arrested the day before the meeting. The author was reinstated in the