Alim Khan, Emir of Bukhara, seated holding his sword.
Alim Khan, Emir of Bukhara, seated holding his sword.
View of Saint Nil Stolbenskii Monastery on Svetlitsa island, Lake Seliger.
View of Saint Nil Stolbenskii Monastery on Svetlitsa island, Lake Seliger.
A melon vendor in Samarkand.
A melon vendor in Samarkand.
Three young women offer berries to visitors at their izba, a traditional wooden house, in a rural area along the Sheksna River near the town of Kirillov.
Three young women offer berries to visitors at their izba, a traditional wooden house, in a rural area along the Sheksna River near the town of Kirillov.
Mills in Ialutorovsk district of Tobolsk Province.
Mills in Ialutorovsk district of Tobolsk Province.
inkhus Karlinskii. Eighty-four years old, Sixty-six years of service as supervisor of the Chernigov floodgate.
inkhus Karlinskii. Eighty-four years old, Sixty-six years of service as supervisor of the Chernigov floodgate.
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General view of the Shakh-i Zindeh mosque, Samarkand.
General view of the Shakh-i Zindeh mosque, Samarkand.
Full-length profile portrait of a woman, possibly Turkman or Kirgiz, standing on a carpet at the entrance to a yurt, dressed in traditional clothing and jewelry
Full-length profile portrait of a woman, possibly Turkman or Kirgiz, standing on a carpet at the entrance to a yurt, dressed in traditional clothing and jewelry
The icon of Mother of God-Odigitria in the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin, Smolensk.
The icon of Mother of God-Odigitria in the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin, Smolensk.
Zindan (prison) in Central Asia, with inmates looking out through the bars and a guard with Russian rifle, uniform, and boots.
Zindan (prison) in Central Asia, with inmates looking out through the bars and a guard with Russian rifle, uniform, and boots.
Rafts on the Ladoga Canal in the city of Shlisselburg.
Rafts on the Ladoga Canal in the city of Shlisselburg.
Group of Greek workers harvesting tea.
Group of Greek workers harvesting tea.
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View of Tiflis from the grounds of Saint David Church
View of Tiflis from the grounds of Saint David Church
Russian children sitting on the side of a hill near a church and bell tower in the countryside near White Lake, in the north of European Russia.
Russian children sitting on the side of a hill near a church and bell tower in the countryside near White Lake, in the north of European Russia.
Austrian prisoners of war in front of a barrack near Kiappeselga.
Austrian prisoners of war in front of a barrack near Kiappeselga.
A family with shovels and horse-drawn carts, working at the iron mines in the Bakaly hills.
A family with shovels and horse-drawn carts, working at the iron mines in the Bakaly hills.
Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii and others seated at a night camp by a rock on the bank of the Chusovaia.
Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii and others seated at a night camp by a rock on the bank of the Chusovaia.
Workers and supervisors posing for photograph amid preparations for pouring cement for sluice dam foundation across the Oka River near Beloomut.
Workers and supervisors posing for photograph amid preparations for pouring cement for sluice dam foundation across the Oka River near Beloomut.
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View of Suzdal along the Kamenka River
View of Suzdal along the Kamenka River
Prokudin-Gorskiĭ in suit and hat, beside the Karolitskhali River.
Prokudin-Gorskiĭ in suit and hat, beside the Karolitskhali River.
As long as there have been empires, there have been monarchs presenting them to the world through rose-colored lenses. Under Czar Nicholas II, blue and green got introduced to the palette.
In 1909, Nicholas authorized Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii to document his empire using a new technique called additive color. Over a period of about six years, Prokudin-Gorskii took some 10,000 pictures, systematically chronicling Russia’s rich culture, industry, and architecture. His stunning photos capture the breadth of life in the last days of an empire, its rugged frontiers and rural landscapes, and the signs of its growing industrial might. They were meant to be presented as “optical color projections” to the nation’s school children, to expose them to the dazzling diversity of Russian life they wouldn’t otherwise see. The images offer a rare glimpse of pre-revolutionary Russia, in color so vivid it’s easy to forget they’re a century old.
They operate on the now familiar principle that a wide range of colors can be reproduced by combining monochrome exposures in red, green, and blue. To achieve this, Prokudin-Gorskii used three oblong glass plates to snap black and white slides in quick bursts through colored filters. James Clerk Maxwellin first proposed the technique in the mid 1800s, and it’s still used today in many televisions and computer monitors.
Prokudin-Gorskii, a Renaissance man who also dabbled in chemistry, painting and music, had been toying with the idea of chronicling Russia in color for at least a year before proposing it to the Czar. After studying in Germany with color photography pioneer Adolf Miethe, Prokudin-Gorskii gained a reputation as an innovator in the field, even managing to get a color portrait of Russian literary titan Leo Tolstoy. That photo helped earn him an audience with Nicholas II, who gave his blessing for the project and even cleared a special railroad car with a darkroom built into it.
Prokudin-Gorskii traveled far and wide taking his pictures up through the October Revolution of 1917, but left Russia the next year and ultimately wound up in Paris with some 3,500 negatives and prints. In 1948, the Library of Congress bought the negatives for around $5,000. In 2000, they were digitally realigned for an exhibition, eliminating many of the glitchy color errors that had resulted from combining the exposures by hand, or the slight movement of subjects between shots. The pictures shown here are the more polished results of those computer-assisted methods, but the old versions have a colorful charm of their own.
