In 1839, he began auditing classes at the Imperial Academy of Arts; notably the landscape painting workshops of Maxim Vorobiev.

From 1841 to 1842, he participated in a scientific expedition to the Altai and Sayan mountains led by the naturalist, Pyotr Chikhachyov.

Two years later, he moved to Siberia, settling in Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, where he set up a small home and studio.

While there, he painted works of an ethnographic nature and illustrated several books by Richard Maack, Leopold Schrenk, Georg Wilhelm Timm and Lev Sternberg.

[1] In 1863, his health began to fail and he returned to Saint Petersburg, where he continued to paint scenes of the Amur territory to help support his daughters' artistic education.