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Thread of Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii’s photography expedition across the Russian Empire:
“At the dawn of photography, the equipment was large and cumbersome, developing glass plates to reveal images was an intense process, and color, of course, didn’t exist. To take photos required an expedition of many to haul all this equipment, often at great expense.
So add to this a great invention – shooting in color, before the invention of color film. This was accomplished by shooting three images, one quickly after the other, each with a red, blue and green filter over the lens.”
View of the monastery from Svetlitsa. Seliger Lake, Volga River Region, Russia. 1910
Catholic Armenian women from Artvin. In 1897, according to the census, Catholic Armenians composed 65.5% of Artvin’s population.
Kurdish woman with children near the Kvartskhana village, 1912
Imam and his students near their Otta Millet (?) mosque, Artvin, 1912
Tea factory in Chakvi. The supervisor of the production, or as the photographer referred to him, the tea master, Liu Zhenzhou. He was also the father of Chinese revolutionary Liu Shaozhou, participant of the two first congresses of the Communist international.
Georgia, 1912
Georgia, 1912
At the public square, Registan, Samarkand. Photo taken in front of the Sherdor madrasa.
Yacub and the Kuttab (elementary school) students. Samarkand. Early 1900s
Old Sart man, Samarkand.
Sart women, Samarkand. Early 1900s
Group of Jewish boys with their teacher. Samarkand.
Jewish girls from Samarkand
Bukharan clerk at Emir Shir-Budun’s summer palace. 1906-1907
Said Mir Mohammed Alim Khan, the emir of Bukhara, 1911. “Emir presided over the internal affairs of his emirate as absolute monarch and reigned from 3 January 1911 to 30 August 1920.”
Mirzo Nasrullo qoshbegi, minister of internal affairs of the Bukharan Emirate from 1910 to 1917.
Group of workers harvesting tea. Among them: Greeks, one Chinese girl and other ethnicities from the Russian empire. Chakvi, Georgia, 1912
Georgian tomato seller.
Persian Tatars (as per the photographer) from Saatli, Mughan, currently Azerbaijan.
Avar women from Dagestan, 1904
Lezgin man from Dagestan, 1904
Fisherman at Iset river, Ural, 1909
Pinchus Karlinsky, 84 years old, 66 of which he worked as the overseer of the Chernigov floodgate. 1909
An old cross at the women’s monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God (Uspensky). Perm, 1909
Russian peasant girl in a traditional costume from the Olomets governorate. 1909
Group of Russian peasant children from Belozersk, 1909
Russian peasant girls with berries from a village near the Sheksna river. 1909
Peasant boys and girls on a lunch break during haymaking time. River Sheksna, 1909
Sawyers, 1909
At the harvest, 1909
Bashkir switchman, summer of 1910
Bashkir woman in traditional attire, 1910
Cotton delivery to the factory. 1911
Family from the Teke tribe and their yurt. Bayram Ali, 1911
Teke man on a camel. Near Bayram Ali, 1911
Done for now 
