Extraordinary collection of colour photographs taken between 1909 and
1912. In those years, photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii
(1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with
the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture
three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red,
green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and
projected with filtered lanterns to show near true colour images. The
high quality of the images, combined with the bright colours, make it
difficult for viewers to believe that they are looking 100 years back in
time - when these photographs were taken, neither the Russian
Revolution nor World War I had yet begun. Collected here are a few of
the hundreds of colour images made available by the Library of Congress,
which purchased the original glass plates back in 1948.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html

▷ click the pics to view the full image, they're all twice this size ◁



▲ An Armenian woman in national costume poses for Prokudin-Gorskii on a hillside near Artvin (in present day Turkey), circa 1910



▲ Self-portrait on the Karolitskhali River, ca. 1910.




▲ View of Tiflis (Tblisi), Georgia, ca. 1910




▲ Isfandiyar Jurji Bahadur, Khan of the Russian protectorate of Khorezm. This
photo would have been taken near the start of his reign in 1910, when he
was 39 years old. He ruled Khorezm until his death in 1918.




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





▲ A group of Jewish children with a teacher in Samarkand, (in modern Uzbekistan), ca. 1910.




▲ A switch operator poses on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, near the town of Ust Katav on the Yuryuzan River in 1910.




▲ Sart woman in purdah in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, ca.
1910. Until the Russian revolution of 1917, "Sart" was the name for
Uzbeks living in Kazakhstan.




▲ A water-carrier in Samarkand (present-day Uzbekistan), ca. 1910.




▲ A metal truss bridge on stone piers, part of the
Trans-Siberian Railway, crossing the Kama River near Perm, Ural
Mountains Region, ca. 1910.