Russian Empire 1909-1915 (Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii)

Photos by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) offer a vivid portrait of a lost world - the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I and the coming revolution. It includes images of medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia to the railroads and factories of a growing industrial power, and daily life and work of a diverse population of Russia.

In the early 1900s Prokudin-Gorskii developed a bold plan to conduct photographic Russian Empire, which received the support of Monarch Nicholas II. In the period between 1909 and 1912 and then in 1915, he conducted a review of the eleven regions, traveling in a specially equipped railroad car provided to him by the Ministry of Railways.
Prokudin-Gorskii left Russia in 1918, first to Norway and England and then finally to France. By the time the king and his family were murdered and the empire that Prokudin-Gorskii so carefully sealed, was destroyed. His unique images of Russia on the eve of the revolution - made on glass negatives - were bought from the heirs of his Library of Congress in 1948.

An interesting fact about these photos: In those days there was not a color film, nor the ability to print a color photo. But Sergei knew that in the future it will become possible. By this he devised a unique method for the time. By using three filters red, green and blue, he created color channels, 3 for each photo. Because of this we got shots that in sum gave us colorfull photos of that time.