▪ ▪ ▪   Photographs of Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskii   ▪ ▪ ▪
These remarkable color photos were taken between 1905 and 1915, by capturing 3 images on glass plates, each with a different color filter, and were then recombined for presentation. Prokudin-Gorskii used a projector that merged the 3 images for slide shows. Prokudin-Gorskii was sponsored by Tsar Nicholas II and given great freedom to photograph anywhere in the Russian Empire. The images he produced are especially wonderful since two World Wars, the Bolshevik revolution, and almost a century of time have erased much of what he captured. Prokudin-Gorskii managed to take his glass plates to France, escaping the revolution, although his images of the Tsar's family, soon to be assassinated, have never been found. A large number (over 2,000) of Prokudin-Gorskii's original photos were sold to the Library of Congress by his family, and are available online at the Library of Congress website. I have done some cropping, color-correction and improving of each image shown here. These are but a few of the Gorskii collection.

Note: I originally posted 59 Prokudin-Gorskii images. In Sept. 2009, I added 85 more, at the top of this page, for a total of 144. Some of these are in the current TMORA exhibit "Revealing the Silk Road" and some were in the previous Prokudin-Gorskii exhibit, "Photographer to the Tsar".

Locomotive and coal car at a railroad yard
Woman in formal dress, posed, standing near gate.
Woman in formal dress, posed, sitting at table with vase of flowers, on a balcony overlooking a field.
Details of Milan Cathedral
Man using tool to strip logs, Central Asia?
Vendors beside table displaying flatbread
Cotton textile mill interior, probably in Tashkent
On the handcar outside Petrozavodsk on the Murmansk railway
In Little Russia [i.e. Ukraine]
Chapel from the time of Peter the Great, near Kivach waterfall. [Suna River]
Baling machine for hay
Austrian prisoners of war near a barrack, [near Kiappeselga]
Fishing settlement
Group of railroad construction participants
Group of railroad construction participants
View of the Solovetskii Monastery from land. [Solovetski Islands]
Bashkir switchman
Cotton textile mill interior, probably in Tashkent
Mozhaisk Nikolaevskii Cathedral. A side view.
Autumn. A landscape near the village of Gorki. Borodino [Battlefield]
Palace in the village of Borodino
Iconostasis in Borodino's church. Borodino
In the Borodino Museum. Borodino
Assumption Cathedral from Kazan Mountain. Smolensk
Miraculous icon of Mother of God-Odigitriia in the Assumption Cathedral. [Smolensk]
General view of the city of Perm from Gorodskie Gorki
Steam engine "Kompaund" with a Schmidt super-heater
Planing machine. [Imperial Lapidary Works, Ekaterinburg]
Molding shop at the Kasli plant
Mechanical shops for the finishing of artistic castings. [Kasli]
In the town of Zlatoust
On the Sim River near the Asha-Balashovskii Station
Peasant hut in the village of Martianova
Mills (in Ialutorovsk district of Tobolsk Province)
Pinkhus Karlinskii. Eighty-four years [old]. Sixty-six years of service. Supervisor of Chernigov floodgate. [Russian Empire]
Fire squad in the city of Vytegra. [Russian Empire]
Chapel of Emperor Peter the Great, near the village of Petrovskoe. [Russian Empire]
Haying. [Russian Empire]
At harvest time. [Russian Empire]
On the deckhouse of the steamboat "Sheksna" of the M.P.S. [Ministry of Communication and Transportation]. [Russian Empire]
Girl with strawberries. [Russian Empire]
Group of children. [Russian Empire] [Russian Empire]
Peasants haying. [Russian Empire]
Church of the Resurrection in the Grove (from the other side). [Kostroma]
Peter the Great's small boat. Near Pereiaslavl-Zalesskii
Laying concrete for the dam's sluice. [Beloomut]
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
Dagestani types
Dagestani types
Dagestani types
Mullah with his female students near the Artomelinskaia mosque in Artvin
Mullahs in mosque. Aziziia.
Tea factory in Chakva. Chinese foreman Lau-Dzhen-Dzhau Batum
View of tower with numerous frescoes seen through archway
Distributing of water. Borzhom
Evgeniev spring. Borzhom
Ekaterinin spring. Borzhom
Georgian woman
Georgian woman
Old house on the cliff on the left bank of Kura River
Mugan. Settler's family. Settlement of Grafovka
New inn. Gagra
Trader in the Registan. Samarkand
Kebab restaurant. Samarkand
Students in Mudaris. Samarkand
Sart house. On the outskirts of Samarkand
Water pipe. Samarkand
Carpenter. Samarkand
Sart types. Samarkand
Engineer Morgunenkov's water-raising machine on Emperor Nicholas I Canal near government house. Golodnaia Steppe
Dome of the Gur-Emir mosque from eastern side. Samarkand
Students. Samarkand
Sentry at the palace, and old cannons. Bukhara
At work on the upper reaches of the Syr-Darya. Golodnaia Steppe
Sart schoolchildren. Samarkand
Laborers loading sacks onto railway at factory warehouse
L.N. Tolstoi. In Iasnaia Poliana
In the Luzhskii district
Group of children. In Iasnaia Poliana
Karelian types
Recovery of gold-bearing sand. [Berezovski]
Jewish school children with a teacher. Samarkand
Zindan (prison), with inmates looking out through the bars and a guard with Russian rifle, uniform, and boots, Central Asia
Isfandiyar, Khan of the Russian protectorate of Khorezm(Khiva), full-length portrait, in uniform, seated on chair, outdoors
Zindan (prison), with inmates looking out through the bars and a guard with Russian rifle, uniform, and boots, Central Asia
Isfandiyar, Khan of the Russian protectorate of Khorezm(Khiva), in uniform, seated on chair, outdoors
Myself (Prokudin-Gorskii) with two others, Murman)
Railroad bridge across the Onda River
Smolensk. View of the fortress wall from Lopatiniskii Garden
Three generations. A.P. Kalganov with son and granddaughter. The last two work in the shops of the Zlatoust plant
Krasnaia Cliff near Miniar Station
Peasant woman breaking flax. Perm Province
Guard dogs
Iurezan Bridge
General view of Katav-Ivanovskii Zavod
Transportation of lumber for the smelting of iron ore
Blast furnaces at the Satkinskii factory
Bashkir woman in a folk costume
Young Bashkir. [Ekhia]
Bashkir near his house. [Ekhia]
View of the central part of the village of Nyrob from the southwest
Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker Church, from the west. [Nyrob]
site where Mikhail Nikitich Romanov was imprisoned. View from the west. The village of Nyrob. Ural
View of the city of Tobolsk from the north, from the bell tower of the Church of the Transfiguration
Tobolsk waterfront from the north
View of the city of Tobolsk from Assumption Cathedral from the northwest
Railroad construction on the Shadrinsk-Sinara railroad near the city of Shadrinsk
Grave of Metropolitan Felofei in the Trinity Monastery Cathedral in Tiumen
Church of the Holy Mother of God (from other side). [Tobolsk]
Assumption Cathedral in Tobolsk. Rampart and part of a fence
Ostrechiny. Study. [Russian Empire]
Fire alarm on steamboat Sheksna. [Russian Empire]
Garden of the M.P.S. [Ministry of Communication and Transportation] and Saint Paul sluice. Deviatiny. [Russian Empire]
Wooden Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. The village of Pidma. [Russian Empire]
Crew of the steamship "Sheksna" of the M.P.S. [Ministry of Communication and Transportation]. [Russian Empire]
Dredger Mariinskaia no. 5. [Russian Empire]
Iconostasis in the Church of the Transfiguration. [Belozersk, Russian Empire]
General view of the city of Belozersk from the fortress wall. [Russian Empire]
Church of Our Savior and the Protection of the Mother of God. Vytegorskii graveyard. [Russian Empire]
Mother Superior Taisiia on the veranda. [Leushinskii Monastery, Leushina, Russian Empire]
Extracting a spoke from the dam (Poare system). [Russian Empire]
Woodcutters on the Svir River. [Russian Empire]
Peasant girls. [Russian Empire]
Two men standing on a rug, in front of yurt
View of the monastery from Svetlitsa [Island, Saint Nil Stolbenskii Monastery, Lake Seliger]
Spinning yarn. In the village of Izvedovo
Dagestani types
Armenian woman in national costume, Artvin
Head study
On the Registan. Samarkand
Sart cemetery near Syr-Darya. Golodnaia Steppe
Observing a solar eclipse on January 1, 1907, near the Cherniaevo Station in the Tian-Shan mountains above the Saliuktin mines. Golodnaia Steppe
Two prisoners in shackles
bayga local
cotton textile mill
fabric merchant
girl by yurt
Mausoleum of Seljuk
melon vendor
nomadic Kirghiz
Saliuktin mines
Sart man