He came from the noble family of Yelizarovs, descended from Yelizar, the son of tatarian prince Yegud, who served Vasili II.
In the winter of 1647—1648, by order of the Novgorod prikaz, Yelizarov searched the Stroganovs' and monasteries' estates for fugitive peasants, and settled them at the Kungurka River, "so that they would live under the Sovereign and not run away anywhere."
Elizarov assigned oversight of the settlement construction to his representative Surovtsev and podyachy Vakhtin.
He composed the census books which are now of great interest to historians, since they contained the earliest mentions of several cities and towns of Perm Krai.
Here is what Yelizarov wrote about the village at the place of the modern town of Lysva: A village at the mouth of Sylva River with a peasants in it: the homestead of Veneditko, nicknamed Buzhenko, Ivan's son, with his children, Fyedka, Gerasimko and Stepanko, and his brother-in-law Tereshka Anisim's son Veyagin.