The certificate he received upon graduation from the gymnasium on June 16, 1884, confirmed that he had the right "to enter higher specialized schools, undergoing only a verification test.

"[3] Anisimov had to work hard to study: his parents and relatives considered education unnecessary and, according to custom, wanted to marry him early to a girl to whom he had been engaged when he was only three years old.

[2][3][4][6] Anisimov managed to get a job in Moscow, but soon he left for Temir-Khan-Shurá, where he had to fully experience the consequences of the discriminatory laws adopted by the tsarist government in relation to the Jewish population of the Russian Empire.

[3] On the advice of the chief rabbi of Southern Dagestan, Khazkel Mushailov, Anisimov began to study his people ethnographically, describing the wedding and funeral rites of the Mountain Jews.

Anisimov enthusiastically took up the work, and in 1881, the essay “Caucasian Mountain Jews” appeared in the Russian-Jewish magazine "Rassvet" (Russian: Рассвет) in Saint Petersburg.

[2] An acquaintance with the professor of Imperial Moscow University, the outstanding Russian scientist Vsevolod Miller, significantly influenced the future life of Ilya Anisimov.

[2][3] On October 31, 1885, Anisimov gave a report at a meeting of the ethnographic department of OLEAE, where he presented statistical information he had collected about the number of Mountain Jews, named the settlements where they lived, and introduced those present to the religious beliefs of the Mountain Jews, especially highlighting elements of paganism.

[2][3] In March 1886, Anisimov was elected a member of the ethnographic department of the Society of Devotees of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography.

[2][3][4][6] At Miller’s suggestion, the Moscow Archeological Society [ru] commissioned Anisimov to travel to the Caucasus to collect historical and ethnographic materials about the Mountain Jews.

[2][3] The Chief Rabbi of Dagestan, Yaakov Yitzhaki, gave Anisimov his copy of the medieval manuscript “Derbend-Nama” (Russian: Дербенд-наме).

[8][11] Anisimov’s role as the founder of modern Mountain Jewish literature attracted significant attention, and books were written about him.

The first reprint of the scientist’s widely known monograph “Caucasian Mountain Jews” was carried out under the editorship of Doctor of Philosophy S.I.

Then, on the initiative of relatives, a personal exhibition of the artist Stanislav Shpanin, the scientist’s great-grandson, was held in the Israeli city of Netanya.

[4][13][6] Anisimov’s grandson, Mikhail Georgievich Shpanin (the son of his daughter Cecilia Ilyinishna Anisimova), wrote a book about him titled “Unknown about the Famous Mountain Jewish Ethnographer I. Sh.

[15] On December 18, 2022, the Community Center of Mountain Jews in Moscow hosted historical and ethnographic readings dedicated to the 160th anniversary of Ilya Sherebetovich Anisimov.

They discussed the scientific heritage of Ilya Anisimov and the importance of perpetuating the memory of the first Mountain Jewish scientist and ethnographer.

[4] A separate exhibition was created in the Museum of Mountain Jews in Krasnaya Sloboda, where all of Anisimov’s works are presented.