The photographs of Russian chemist and photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, show Russia on the eve of World War I and the coming of the revolution. From 1909-1912 and again in 1915, Prokudin-Gorskii travelled across the Russian Empire, documenting life, landscapes and the work of Russain people. His images were to be a photographic survey of the time. He travelled in a special train car transformed into a dark room to process his special process of creating color images, a technology that was in its infancy in the early 1900’s. Prokudin-Gorskii left Russia in 1918, after the Russian Revolution had destroyed the Empire he spent years documenting. To learn more about the Prokudin-Gorskii, the process he used to create the color photographs, and see his collection, you can visit the Library of Congress, who purchased his glass negatives in 1948 after his death in 1944.
View of the monastery from Svetlitsa Island, Saint Nil Stolbenskii Monastery, Lake Seliger; 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Peasant girls, Russian Empire. Three young women offer berries to visitors to their izba, a traditional wooden house, in a rural area along the Sheksna River, near the town of Kirillov; 1909 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Trans-Siberian Railway metal truss bridge on stone piers, over the Kama River near Perm, Ural Mountains Region; ca. 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Cotton textile mill interior with machines producing cotton thread, probably in Tashkent; between 1905 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Man and camel loaded with packs; between 1905 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Three yurts, man seated in doorway of yurt in foreground; between 1905 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Altar side of the Dmitrievskii Cathedral, Vladimir; 1911 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Bashkir switchman; 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Isfandiyar, Khan of the Russian protectorate of Khorezm (Khiva), full-length portrait, in uniform, seated on chair, outdoors; between 1910 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Austrian prisoners of war near a barrack, near Kiappeselga; 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Church in the village of Shaidoma; 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Photographer posing with two others; 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Shuia River; 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
In Little Russia (Ukraine); between 1905 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Alim Khan, Emir of Bukhara, seated holding sword; between 1905 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Log buildings in the Ural Mountain Region; between 1905 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Corner tower of the Trinity Cathedral in the Solovetskii Monastery, Solovetski Islands; 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Boy standing by wooden gatepost; 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Work at the Bakalskii mine; 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Bashkir’s yard, Ekhia; 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Rafts on the Peter the Great Canal. City of Shlisselburg, Russian Empire; 1909 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
City of Cherdyn; 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Old church of Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker, Nyrob; 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
Church in Vetluga settlement; 1910 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress). <—read more—>
