Vintage photos of the Russian Empire. Pre-revolutionary Russia in color photographs by Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky Photographs from the times of the Russian Empire

We invite you to take a different look at Russia. These color photographs were taken between 1909 and 1912 by photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky (1863 – 1944). The photographer traveled around Russia with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a special camera to take pictures. The camera took three consecutive black-and-white photographs, almost without pause, through red, green and blue filters. To view such photographs, a projector with three lenses was used, located in front of three frames on a photographic plate. Each frame was projected through a filter of the same color as the one through which it was shot. When three images (red, green and blue) were added, a full-color image was obtained on the screen. Thanks to the amazingly high quality of the photographs and amazingly bright colors, it is difficult to believe that these photographs were taken a century ago, before the October Revolution and even before the First World War. We invite you to take a look at a selection of these amazing photographs, which are located in the Library of Congress, which acquired them back in 1948.

1. An Armenian woman in national costume on a hillside near Artvin (now this territory is part of Turkey), approximately 1910.

2. Self-portrait of the photographer on the banks of the Korolitskhali River, circa 1910. Prokudin-Gorsky in a suit and hat sits on a stone on the bank of a river flowing in Caucasus Mountains ah, not far from Batumi, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea.

3. Masters of Kasli casting, approximately 1910. Photo from the album “Views of the Ural Mountains, overview of the industrial area, Russian Empire.”

4. A woman on the banks of the Sim River, in what is now Chelyabinsk region, 1910.

5. Chapel on the site where the city of Belozersk was founded in ancient times, 1909.

6. View of Tiflis (Tbilisi) from the Church of St. David, approximately 1910.

7. Isfandiyar Yurji Bahadur, Khan of the Russian protectorate of Khorezm (Khiva, today part of the territory of modern Uzbekistan), circa 1910.

8. Portrait of Isfandiyar Yurji Bahadur. Presumably this photograph was taken in the early years of his reign, around 1910, when the khan was 39 years old. He ruled Khorezm until his death, which followed in 1918.

9. Young shepherd on the banks of the Sim River. The photo was taken in 1910.

10. Transformers made in Budapest, Hungary, in the hall of the generating station in Iolotan, (Eloten), Turkmenistan, on the Murghab River, circa 1910.

11. Georgian woman, 1910.

12. Group of women from Dagestan, 1910.

13. Panorama of Artvin (now the territory of Turkey), photograph taken from the small town of Svet, approximately 1910.

14. Eighty-four-year-old Pinkhus Karlinski. He devoted 66 years of his life to military service. Responsible for the Chernigov sluice gates, which are part of the Mariinsky Canal system. The photo was taken in 1909.

15. General view to St. Nicholas Cathedral from the southwestern part of the city of Mozhaisk, photograph taken in 1911.

16. A group of Jewish children with their teacher in Samarkand (today the territory of Uzbekistan), 1910.

17. A worker on the Trans-Siberian Railway near the city of Ust-Katav on the Yuryuzan River in 1910.

18. Cornflowers in a field of rye, 1909. Photo from the album “Views of rivers and canals of the Mariinsky system, Russian Empire.”

19. Laying cement during the construction of a dam lock across the Oka River in 1912, near Beloomut.

20. Sart woman wearing a burqa in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, circa 1910. Before the revolution of 1917, the Uzbeks living in Kazakhstan were called the “Sart” people.

21. General view of the pier on the Mezhevaya Utka River, photograph taken in 1912.

22. Peasants collecting hay, photograph taken in 1909.

23. Prokudin-Gorsky on a handcar of the Murmansk railway near Petrozavodsk, the coast of Lake Onega. The photo was taken in 1910.

24. Water carrier in Samarkand (currently the territory of Uzbekistan), around 1910

These color photographs were taken between 1909 and 1912 by photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944) with the support of Tsar Nicholas II.

He used a special camera that successively took three black and white photographs through red, green and blue filters. This allowed them to later be recombined and projected using flashlights with filters to produce photos with almost natural colors. Because of high quality The photographs, coupled with the bright colors, make it difficult for viewers to believe that these photographs were taken 100 years ago, before the October Revolution and even before the First World War.

An Armenian woman in national costume poses for a photograph on a hill near Artvin (now part of Turkey) in 1910.

Self-portrait near the Korolistskhali River, ca. 1910. Prokudin-Gorsky, wearing a suit and hat, sits on a rock by a river in the Caucasus Mountains, near Batumi, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea.

Kasli craftsmen at work, approximately 1910. Photo from the album “Views of the Ural Mountains, overview of the industrial area, Russian Empire.”

A woman sits in a quiet place on the Sim River, which is part of the Volga basin, 1910.

Chapel on the site where the city of Belozersk was founded, 1909.

View of Tbilisi from the Church of St. David, 1910.

Isfandiyar Yurji Bahadur, Khan of the Khorezm region (Khiva, now part of modern Uzbekistan), c. 1910.

Detailed photograph of Isfandiyar Yurji Bahadur. This photograph was taken early in his reign in 1910, when he was 39 years old. He ruled Khorezm until his death in 1918.

Young shepherd on the Sim River. The photo was taken in 1910.

Generators made in Budapest, in the hall of the generating station in Iolotan, Turkmenistan, on the Murghab River, 1910.

Georgian woman posing for a photographer, 1910.

A group of women in Dagestan, 1910.

General view of Artvin (now in Turkey) from the small town of Svet, 1910.

Pinkhus Karlinski is 84 years old, 66 of which he served in the army. Controller of the Chernigov sluice gates, which are part of the Mariinsky Canal system. The photo was taken in 1909.

A group of Jewish children with a teacher in (now Uzbekistan), 1910.

Laying cement for the dam's sluice in 1912. Workers and foremen pose for a photo after taking a moment to prepare for the pouring of cement for the foundation of the sluice gate of the dam across the Oka River, near Beloomut.

A Sart woman wearing a burqa in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, circa 1910. Before the revolution of 1917, the word “sarts” was used to describe Uzbeks living in Kazakhstan.

Prokudin-Gorsky rides along the rails of the Murmansk railway on a handcar near Petrozavodsk, along Lake Onega in 1910.

Photographs from the early 1900s show the Russian Empire on the eve of the First World War and on the verge of revolution.

Photographer Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky was one of the country's leading photographers at the beginning of the twentieth century. The portrait of Tolstoy, taken in 1908, two years before the writer’s death, gained wide popularity. It was reproduced on postcards, in major prints and in various publications, becoming Prokudin-Gorsky's most famous work.

The photo shows the last Emir of Bukhara, Seyid Mir Mohammed Alim Khan, in luxurious clothes. Present-day Uzbekistan, ca. 1910

The photographer traveled through Russia photographing in color in the early 1900s

An Armenian woman in national costume poses for Prokudin-Gorsky on a hillside near the city of Artvin (modern Türkiye).

To reflect the scene in color, Prokudin-Gorsky took three frames, and each time he installed a different color filter on the lens. This meant that sometimes when objects moved, the colors would wash out and become distorted, as in this photo.

The project to document the nation in color images was designed to last 10 years. Prokudin-Gorsky planned to collect 10,000 photographs.

From 1909 to 1912 and again in 1915, the photographer explored 11 regions, traveling in a government-provided railroad car that was equipped with a dark room.

Self-portrait of Prokudin-Gorsky against the backdrop of a Russian landscape.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky was born in 1863 into an aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, he studied chemistry and art. The Tsar's access to areas of Russia that were prohibited for ordinary citizens allowed him to take unique photographs, capturing people and landscapes from different parts of the world. Russian Empire.

The photographer was able to capture scenes in color by using a three-color shooting technique, which allowed viewers to convey a vivid sense of life at that time. He took three frames: one with a red filter, the second with a green filter, and the third with a blue filter.

A group of Dagestani women pose for a photo. Prokudin-Gorsky was accused of capturing uncovered faces.

Colored landscape in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.

Portrait of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Isfandiyar Yurji Bahadur - Khan of the Russian protectorate of Khorezm (part of modern Uzbekistan).

Prokudin-Gorsky began implementing his three-color photography method after visiting Berlin and becoming familiar with the work of the German photochemist Adolf Mithe.

Because of the revolution in 1918, the photographer left his family in his homeland and went to Germany, where he married his laboratory assistant. The new marriage produced a daughter, Elka. He then moved to Paris and was reunited with his first wife, Anna Alexandrovna Lavrova, and three adult children, with whom he founded a photography studio. Sergei Mikhailovich continued his photographic work and published in English-language photo magazines.

The studio he founded and bequeathed to his three adult children was named Elka in honor of his youngest daughter.

The photographer died in Paris in 1944, a month after France was liberated from Nazi occupation.

Using his own method of photography, Prokudin-Gorsky established himself well and was appointed editor of the most important Russian photographic magazine, Amateur Photographer.

He failed to complete his ten-year project to take 10,000 photographs. After the October Revolution, Prokudin-Gorsky left Russia forever.

By that time, according to experts, he had created 3,500 negatives, but many of them were confiscated and only 1,902 were restored. The entire collection was purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948, and the digitized footage was published in 1980.

A group of Jewish children in bright coats with their teacher.

Beautiful and peaceful landscape in pre-revolutionary Russia.

A girl in a bright purple dress.

Overseer of the Chernigov spillway

Parents with three daughters are relaxing in a field, mowing at sunset.

Master of artistic forging. This photograph was taken at the Kasli Metallurgical Plant in 1910.

View of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Mozhaisk in 1911

Photographer (front right) on a handcar outside Petrozavodsk on Murmanskaya railway along Lake Onega.

This image especially shows how difficult it was to capture the photo in color when the subjects couldn't sit still. The colors were washed out.

13.2.2014, 11:54

These are the sturgeons that were found in Slavic rivers until recently... until 1921

Weighing and primary cutting of sturgeon
Astrakhan, late XIX - early XX centuries

Photo from the album "Types of Astrakhan fisheries. Part I"

Vladislav_tomsk

13.2.2014, 18:18

unfortunately then - this is not now... everything that could be caught has already been caught; another 300 years will pass until such a fish appears...

13.2.2014, 20:23

Tambov peasants on trial 1921

possibly due to resistance from the Tambov province

The Tambov province was the most peasant and populous of all the provinces of Russia: for more than 3.5 million people there were only 250,000 townspeople (about 8%), and the population from 1811 to 1913 was . increased by 2.8 times - this is one of the largest increases in Russia (for comparison, at the same time in Kaluga province by 50%). The province exported up to 60 million poods of grain per year, including almost half abroad. Tambov, Rasskazovo, Kozlov (now Michurinsk) were large grain markets with multi-million dollar turnover. Proximity to the Center and relative distance from the fronts made the Tambov region one of the main food bases of the country.

The grain-producing Tambov province experienced the full brunt of surplus appropriation. By October 1918, 50 food detachments from Petrograd, Moscow, Cherepovets and other cities with a total number of up to 5 thousand people were operating in the province. No other province has known such a scale of confiscations. After the grain was raked clean from the peasants, it often disappeared on the spot: it rotted at nearby stations, was drunk by food detachments, and distilled into moonshine. The report to Lenin says: “The food committee authorities behaved quite sloppy and uneconomically in relation to the use of confiscated livestock, the preservation of grain and vegetables - a lot of livestock died, bread burned, potatoes froze.” Even then, up to 40 thousand people took part in spontaneous peasant uprisings against violence on the part of food detachments and poor committees.

13.2.2014, 20:26

13.2.2014, 20:28

The transition from the peasantry to the proletariat

Moscow. 1909

13.2.2014, 20:42

Elizaveta Lysko - 2 meters 27 centimeters 1889

In 1877, a girl, Lisa, was born into a family of Lysko burghers who lived in the provincial town of Krasnokutsk (near Novocherkassk).
She developed normally until she was three years old, and then she began to grow “by leaps and bounds.” By the age of ten she was already taller than her parents (people of average height) - 2 arshins 11 vershoks, that is, 1 meter 92 centimeters, and by the age of 17 - 2 meters 27 centimeters and weighed 8 pounds (132 kilograms). This was an amazing development - after all, Elizabeth had a moderate appetite, like her “normal” brothers and sisters.
The Lysko family with many children lived in poverty, and after the death of their father the situation became very difficult. The brother of their deceased father, Mikhail Gavrilovich Lysko, helped them. It was decided to use Elizabeth’s extraordinary growth in the interests of the family, and Mikhail Gavrilovich goes to travel with her to different cities and countries.
In Leipzig, Elizabeth was introduced to the Anthropological Society and received a certificate that she was “an exceptional phenomenon in the world.” In Berlin, anthropologists once again confirmed this conclusion. And Professor Virchow suggested that Lisa should grow another 13 inches (58 centimeters).
Elizabeth and her uncle traveled all over Europe. In 1889 they visited Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseille, and other cities of France. Then they went to the UK, visiting London, Liverpool and Manchester. In 1893, Elizabeth visited Berlin twice, then Naples, Rome, Milan, Zurich, Munich and Vienna.
Elizaveta Lysko traveled a lot around her native country. In St. Petersburg, where she lived for some time, she was invited to parties and visited theaters. In the newspapers they called her “the miracle giant”, and “the giant maiden”, and even... “the miracle of the Lilliputians”. Elizabeth was very capable person: while traveling, I learned to speak English, German, and received a secondary education. She died early, somewhere abroad (the details are unknown to her living relatives).

Fyodor Makhnov - peasant Vitebsk province(now Belarus).
Supposedly one of the tallest people to ever live on earth. His height was 285 centimeters (there is an opinion that these data are greatly exaggerated and his height was only 239 cm).

Fyodor Andreevich Makhnov, a native of the small village of Kostyuki near Vitebsk, was born on June 6, 1878.

The boy was the first-born in an ordinary peasant family. His parents were tall people, but were not considered giants. Due to the fact that the newborn was too large, his mother could not endure the difficult birth and died. The little orphan was taken to be raised by his grandparents

At first, Fedor practically did not stand out among his peers, but by the age of eight he began to grow very quickly. Despite the fact that he slept a lot during this period (almost for days on end), Fedya grew up to be a very strong boy.

At the age of 10, the father took the grown boy to live with him. Helping his father with housework, Fedya became stronger and more tempered. Large beyond his age, he could easily pull a peasant cart loaded with hay up a mountain or lift an adult man on a dare. Neighbors often used his abilities to build houses, where he helped lift logs.

13.2.2014, 20:48

More recently, there were other demonstrations in Lviv

13.2.2014, 20:55

Japanese troops await an attack by the Russian cavalry, 1905

The Russo-Japanese War (January 27 (February 9), 1904 – August 23 (September 5), 1905) was a war between the Russian and Japanese Empires for control of Manchuria and Korea. Became - after a break of several decades - the first big war using the latest weapons: long-range artillery, battleships, destroyers.

Russian troops retreat from Mukden. February 21, 1905.

The Battle of Mukden is the largest, longest and bloodiest battle of the Russian-Japanese War. Deployed on a front with a total length of up to 150 km. About half a million soldiers and officers, two and a half thousand artillery pieces, and 250 machine guns took part in it on both sides. The total human losses of the fighting armies exceeded 160 thousand people (that is, up to 30% of the number of participants), of which over 24 thousand were killed and 131 thousand were wounded. Neither side won a decisive victory in this battle, but the Japanese capture of Mukden allowed them to claim victory.

Reconnaissance of the Russian cavalry near Mukden

Russian soldiers enter Mukden, Manchuria 1905

Flying ambulance squad in Mukden. Ringmaster Rodzianko's detachment. 1905

At the Sypingai position, Russian-Japanese War. 1905

Photo by Prokudin-Gorsky

The Japanese raise the Russian cruiser "Varyag". Near the city of Chemulpo. 1905

Submarines of the Siberian Flotilla in Vladivostok

In Ulysses Bay, in the background destroyer"Thunderstorm".
September 1908

13.2.2014, 21:06

13.2.2014, 21:21

Gazprom how it all began...
Sakhalin 1922

13.2.2014, 21:24

Cossack family.
Tsimlyanskaya village. 1875-1876

Peasants Nizhny Novgorod province. 1870

Afro-Karabakh. 1870

Abkhazian Negroes or Caucasian Negroes are a small racial-ethnic Negroid group of the Abkhazian people.
They appeared in the Caucasus around the 17th century. According to one version, they were originally brought as slaves, according to another - the descendants of the ancient Colchs.
Photo by George Kennan.

13.2.2014, 21:29

Some come to rob, others come to rob... where should a peasant go?
I still have my legs spread out here...

13.2.2014, 22:11

Construction of the Far Eastern Railway (Transsib) 1891

Convict chained to a wheelbarrow 1891

Photo by A.K. Kuznetsova, Album "At Hard Labor in Nerchinsk".

Delivery of water 1891

Delivery of water to the prison and vegetable gardens, Nerchinsk penal servitude.

Lozhkari 1891

The year is not exact.
Photo by M. P. Dmitriev.

A miner pulls a box of coal out of the mine. 1890s.

13.2.2014, 22:16

Very interesting topic, thank you for creating it on the forum.

13.2.2014, 22:19

Tea caravan from China to Moscow 1900

XIX century. The road from Kyakhta (a Russian trading city on the border with Mongolia) to Moscow in the middle of the 19th century. was 5555 versts. Three months of travel for a tea convoy cost from 4 to 8 rubles. from the pood.
Russia purchased 360 thousand poods of tea per year (?) worth 5–6 million rubles; more than half of all furs exported from the country went to China to pay for tea.

Collecting pine nuts by splitting (canoe) 1900

Method of application: knock a cone off the cedars with blows of giant hammers (chops, canoes).
Baikal region, beginning of the 20th century.

13.2.2014, 22:22

Trizna of the Mari (Cheremis) 1900

Vyatka province (now Kirov region).
1900s

Carols. Goretsky district, Mogilev province. 1903

13.2.2014, 22:31

Trade in meat carcasses Kurgan. 1903

Great Bell Market in Nizhny Novgorod 1902

Siberian pier and Alexander Nevsky Cathedral Nizhny Novgorod. 1902

Chinese rows at the Nizhny Novgorod fair. 1902

In the early years of the fair, the Chinese Rows were the most prestigious and expensive places of trade. Only the richest merchants and firms settled here. But over time, the emphasis moved to other areas of the fair and small traders settled in these rows.
(from the memoirs of N.A. Varentsov)

Invitation to a literary and musical evening. 1901

S.P.B.O-vo - St. Petersburg Society.

Amateur country theater 1900s

13.2.2014, 22:37

Marinas in Nizhny Novgorod. 1900s

Game of "towns". 1900s

Village Kamenka, Yenisei district. Beginning of the 20th century
Reproduced from the book “The Siberian Folk Calendar in Ethnographic Relation” by Alexei Makarenko (St. Petersburg, 1913, p. 163).

Vladivostok. 1900s

13.2.2014, 23:08

A steam locomotive that went under water on a temporary ice crossing across the Amur. Khabarovsk. 1905

Indigenous people of Sakhalin at the bear festival. 1905

The Ainu are a people who once lived in the lower reaches of the Amur River, Kamchatka, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and Japan.
Currently they remain mainly only in Japan.

Washing clothes on the Tagil River. Nizhny Tagil. About 1907–1915

Photo by S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky.

Strengthening electrical wires for tram traffic. 1907

Photo by K.K.Bulla.

On Trinity Bridge, St. Petersburg. 1907

The first taxis (taxis) in St. Petersburg. 1908

Alloy 1909

Mariinsky Canal.

The original title is "Na chastnykh gonkakh".

Tea cart in St. Petersburg. 1909

Inscription:
"City Sanitary Commission
FREE BOILING WATER
WATER [..] DRINKING [..] TEA WITH SUGAR"

14.2.2014, 14:24

Columns of sailors pass by the stands on Uritsky Square.
Now Palace Square, Saint Petersburg. May 1, 1931

19.2.2014, 18:25

Water mill with three wheels 1910
Vorskla River. Okhtyrka city, Sumy region.

Beloomut. Concrete machine for mixing cement 1912

Author - Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky.

Don Cossacks 1910

Cossack Prowess 1910

19.2.2014, 18:38

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky (August 18 (30), 1863, Funikova Gora, Pokrovsky district, Vladimir province, Russian Empire - September 27, 1944, Paris, France) - Russian photographer, chemist (mentor of Mendeleev), inventor, publisher, teacher and public figure, member of the Imperial Russian Geographical, Imperial Russian Technical and Russian Photographic Societies. He made a significant contribution to the development of photography and cinematography. Pioneer of color photography in Russia, creator of the “Collection of Landmarks of the Russian Empire.”

Tiled stove in the Prince's Tower, Rostov Veliky. 1911

View of Suzdal along the Kamenka River. 1912

Photographed on the outskirts of the ancient Russian city of Suzdal are stone churches, wooden houses and a small bridge over the Kamenka River. Once an important and powerful principality, Suzdal fell into decline while Moscow gained strength and took control of several principalities in central European Russia.

View of Tobolsk from the north. 1912

From its foundation in 1587 until the end of the nineteenth century, Tobolsk was one of the largest and most important cities in Siberia. For several centuries, Tobolsk was the military, administrative and political center of Russian rule in Siberia. In the foreground of this panoramic view is the Irtysh River and the wide, flat Siberian Plain that lies beyond the central part of the city.

Method of storing hay, art. Elm. 1910

Against the backdrop of a dense pine forest, wooden storage facilities for hay and food crops are visible in the settlement of Vyazovaya, located along the main route of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the Urals.

The village of Kolchedanskoye. 1912

A dirt road passing over a stone bridge leads to the village of Kolchedanskoye, located in the Ural Mountains southeast of Yekaterinburg. By the time this photo was taken in 1912, the village, founded in 1673 as a fort for the Russian advance east, had become a sandstone mining and processing center with two large stone church buildings, including a convent and school.

19.2.2014, 18:42

Chapel on the site of the founding of Belozersk. 1909 (without a cross?)

The city of Belozersk, first mentioned in Russian chronicles in 862 AD, was abandoned and moved several times. The first settlement, on the site of which a small wooden chapel was built in the nineteenth century, was located on the northern side of White Lake in north-central European Russia.

19.2.2014, 18:53

View of Tiflis

This panoramic view of Tiflis shows the city nestled in a valley among the Caucasus Mountains. Currently, this is Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. At the time this photo was taken, around 1910, it was home to a multi-ethnic population of 160,000, including Georgians, Armenians, Russians, Persians, Poles, Tatars and Jews.

Peasant girls. 1909

Young peasant girls offer berries to guests at a hut in the countryside on the Sheksna River near the village of Kirillov.

Children 1909

Children sit on a hillock near a church and bell tower in the countryside near White Lake, in northern European Russia.

Settler's family, Mugan steppe

Russian settlers who settled in the Mugan steppe region, south of the Caucasus and west of the Caspian Sea, founded the small village of Grafovka there. This area is directly north of the Persian border. Official public policy supported the settlement of Russians in non-European parts of the empire, especially in the border areas, and played a significant role in the resettlement of Russians in Siberia, on Far East and the Caucasus.

Mills in the Yalutorovsky district of the Tobolsk province. 1912

Wooden mills using the power of wind to grind wheat and rye are pictured in midsummer on the vast Siberian Plain in rural Yalutorovsky district in Western Siberia.

Three generations: A.P. Kalganov with his son and granddaughter. 1910

A.P. Kalganov poses with his son and granddaughter for a portrait in the industrial city of Zlatoust in the Urals. His son and granddaughter work at the Zlatoust military plant, the main supplier of weapons to the Russian military since the early nineteenth century. Kalganov has traditional Russian clothing and beard, while his son and granddaughter have more Western, modern clothing and hairstyles.

Work at the Bakalsky mine. 1910

The Urals are famous for the wealth of iron ore deposits. On the Bakal Hills, not far from Yekaterinburg, there is a small mine - a family enterprise.

19.2.2014, 19:02

Concreting the dam floor. 1912

Workers and their bosses pose for a photograph as they prepare to lay the concrete foundation for a dam across the Oka River southeast of Moscow near the small town of Dedinovo.

In the hayfield near the rest stop

This scene, filmed in the early fall of 1909, depicts peasants posing for a photograph after taking a short break from work. Although the exact location is unknown, this photograph was most likely taken near Cherepovets, in north-central European Russia.

Catherine's Spring, Borjom

OK. 1907-1915.
Borjomi is a small city in the Caucasus, on the territory of the modern Georgian Republic. Known for its mineral waters, it was a popular resort at the end of the nineteenth century. Shown here are smartly dressed holidaymakers posing for a photograph at Catherine's Spring.

Group of workers picking tea

Workers, believed to be Greek by Prokudin-Gorsky, pose while picking tea in the undulating hills near Chakva on the eastern Black Sea coast. This area of the Russian Empire was home to a fairly large Greek minority group, some families of which traced their origins back to the classical and Byzantine periods.

Molding of artistic lithium. 1910

Founded in 1747, the Kasli foundry is located in the Urals, between Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk, in an area rich in iron ore. The plant was known for its high quality castings and highly skilled workforce, which numbered over three thousand people at the time this photo was taken.

Textile factory approx. 1907-1915.

Shown here is the production of fiber from local cotton in a textile factory. Although its exact location is unknown, it is most likely located in Tashkent, famous for its textile production. Due to the warm and dry climate Central Asia– and especially Uzbekistan – was an ideal place for growing and processing cotton for the entire empire.

Generators at the plant approx. 1907-1915

In an effort to document the industrial development of the Russian Empire, Prokudin-Gorsky photographed the generators at this plant. The plant is located in the small town of Yolotan, in modern Turkmenistan on the Murgab River near ancient city Merv. Markings are visible on the turbines indicating they were manufactured in Budapest, Hungary.

This collection sights of the Russian Empire was created in 1909-1912 with the support of Emperor Nicholas II. Its uniqueness and exclusivity lies in the fact that it is a kind of visual encyclopedia of the Russian Empire in recent years its existence.

The author of the “collection of landmarks” is Russian photographer, inventor, chemist, teacher Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky. As a pioneer of color photography in Russia, he made a significant contribution to its development.

To obtain color photographs, Prokudin-Gorsky used three cameras with color filters installed on them (red, green and blue). The resulting photographs made it possible to recreate a color image during projection (and later in printing).

Looking at these high quality photos with vibrant colors It's hard to believe that they were made over 100 years ago, even before the outbreak of the First World War.

Controller at the Mariinsky Canal, 1909. 84 years, of which 66 years in service: