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 (18 January 1939), "Izvestia" (4 April), "Pravda" and "Industria Sotsialisma" (July). However the critics disagreed on the question of authorship. Some considered "The Malachite Box" pure folklore, others thought of it was a literary work penned by Bazhov. The author himself tried to avoid the issue, joking that "questions such as these should be left to scholars". At present Bazhov's tales are generally accepted as his own literary work based on the Urals folklore. The editor of "Izvestia" called "The Malachite Box" "a valuable contribution to the Soviet fiction" and noted that "the vividness of expression and poetic richness turn