The work ‘Yakuts. An Attempt of Ethnographic Research’ was written on the base of the author's many years of research. During his twelve-year exile in the Yakutsk Region, S. collected a huge amount of factual material about the customs, traditions, and beliefs of Yakuts, and about the territories they inhabited.
S. dedicated his work to traveler, geographer, Academician A.F. Middendorf, on whose research he relied. S.'s work is also based on early printed sources on Yakutia from the library and museum of the East Siberian Department of the Russian Geographical Society.
The study contains a geographical outline, information about the climate, flora and fauna of the territory, data on the origin of Yakuts, a description of the physical characteristics of the people, the economic foundations of their life, food culture, clothing, buildings, crafts and arts, clan structure, oral folk art, and religious beliefs. The publication of the book was undertaken by the Russian Geographical Society, and reviewing of certain chapters of the manuscript was carried out by geologist, Arctic explorer E.V. Toll, geophysicist E.V. Stelling, botanists S.I.Korzhinsky, and Ya.P. Prein. Initially, it was planned to publish two volumes, but only the first one was issued.
The work by S. has received wide recognition in the research world.