The Russian Empire. Collection of Color Photographs. Photographer Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky

Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky (1863–1944) — inventor, photographer, publisher, and public figure, pioneer of color photography in Russia. The goal of Sergey Mikhaylovich's work was to capture the beauty and richness of the Russian Empire "in natural colors," using the technology of combining frames. From 1903 to 1916, Prokudin-Gorsky managed to take about three and a half thousand color photographs, which constitute his unique legacy "Collection of Landmarks of the Russian Empire," which is stored in the U.S. Library of Congress. Prokudin-Gorsky's collection is a kind of encyclopedia of the history of the Russian Empire. Many monuments of the past, captured by the photographer, we can see only in these photographs. There is no longer the way of life, and, most importantly, those people — witnesses and participants of the events that took place in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. The book presents both well-known and quite rare photographs taken by the photographer while traveling across Central Russia, the Mariinsk Waterway, Central Asia, the Urals, Siberia, and the Caucasus.