1907-1915: Pre-Revolutionary Russia in color
Written By Wolfgang Wild
These pictures were taken by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1863–1944), developer of an early colour photographic process. He was commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II to travel across the Russian Empire capturing its scenes and peoples in many thousands of colour photographs. The Tsar funded the work and had a specially adapted railway carriage made available to Prokudin-Gorsky as a darkroom. Following the Revolution of 1918, Prokudin-Gorsky and his family lived in Paris. Around half of his images had been detained by Communist authorities and were destroyed.
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1911: The Emir of Bukhara
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1907: Observing a solar eclipse
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Main entrance into Shakh-i Zindeh mosque, Samarkand
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Fruit stand, Samarkand
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On the Registan, Samarkand
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1909: Dinner during haying
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‘Dagestani types’
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Forest Road
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Evgenievsky spring. Borzhom
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Two prisoners in shackles
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Sep. 4, 1911: View from the bell tower of the Trinity cathedral (of the Trinity Monastery) on Cathedral Square in Belgorod
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Group of laborers
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Poppy field
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1909: Haying at the Leushinskii Monastery
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1910: Transportation of lumber for the smelting of iron ore
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1910: A Bashkir dog
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1910: A young Bashkir man
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1910: Monks planting potatoes
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1911: Rabbi and students
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1912: Dam across the Oka
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Nazar Magomet, Golodnaia Steppe
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Bayga
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A Bukhara bureaucrat
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1911: An Elderly man
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Sunni Muslim man
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In Little Russia (Ukraine)
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Ethnic Russian settlers
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Group of workers harvesting tea - Greek women (Chakva)
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1910: Molding of an artistic casting, Kasli Iron Works
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A Chinese foreman
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1909: Autumn farmers
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Russian children
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A Zindan
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Uzbek woman
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A Sart woman, Samarkand
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Murmansk railroad
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1911: Melon Vendor
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Sunset in Gagra
Images: Library of Congress
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