He studied the financial system and banking in France, Belgium, England, Scotland and Germany; attended lectures at the University of London.

From May 17, 1861, he began serving as a peace mediator for the Kineshemsky Uyezd of the Kostroma Governorate; he organized work in the volost governments to reduce fires in villages, to repair and strengthen roads, and created the first schools for peasant children, for whom he himself obtained books.

In fact, he led the organization of resettlement from the European part of Russia to the areas adjacent to the road; he had a significant influence on the economic and cultural development of Siberia.

After his trips to Siberia (1896, 1897), the taiga regions of the Tara District began to be intensively populated.

He was a supporter of the gradual Russification of the foreigners of Siberia by creating state primary schools for them with teachers from indigenous peoples and a priority study of Russian history and traditions.

Member of the Russian Geographical Society, chairman of the first congress of representatives of provincial scientists of archival commissions, assistant to the chairman of the Imperial Russian Historical Society, author of the memoirs "Experienced", which give vivid pictures of the situation of settlers in Siberia.