The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated


Ethnic Diversity

Man from DagestanThe Russia of Nicholas II on the eve of World War I was a land of striking ethnic diversity. Comprising all of the republics of what later was to become the Soviet Union, as well as present-day Finland and much of Poland, Russia was home to more than 150 million people--of which only about half were ethnic Russians. In his travels throughout the empire, Prokudin-Gorskii captured this diversity. His color photographs of peasants from rural Russia, the nomadic peoples of Central Asia, and the mountain peoples of the Caucasus predate the forced Russification and the rapid modernization of the Soviet period and document traditional costumes and ways of life.

Peasant Girls

Russian Peasant Girls

Young Russian peasant women offer berries to visitors to their izba, a traditional wooden house, in a rural area along the Sheksna River near the small town of Kirillov.


Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Peasant Girls, 1909.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-03984) (4)

The Emir of Bukhara

The Emir of Bukhara, Alim Khan (1880-1944), poses solemnly for his portrait, taken in 1911 shortly after his accession. As ruler of an autonomous city-state in Islamic Central Asia, the Emir presided over the internal affairs of his emirate as absolute monarch, although since the mid-1800s Bukhara had been a vassal state of the Russian Empire. With the establishment of Soviet power in Bukhara in 1920, the Emir fled to Afghanistan where he died in 1944.


Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
The Emir of Bukhara, 1911.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-03959) (5)

The Emir of Bukhara
Nomadic Kirghiz

Nomadic Kazakhs on the Steppe

Many Central Asiatic peoples, for example the Kirghiz, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks, lived nomadic lives on the steppes, valleys, and deserts, migrating seasonally from one place to another as opportunities for obtaining food, water, and shelter changed. Shown here is a young Kazakh family in colorful traditional dress moving across the Golodnaia (or "Hungry") steppe in present-day Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.


Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Nomadic Kirghiz, 1911.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-03979) (6)

Jewish Children with their Teacher

Samarkand, an ancient commercial, intellectual, and spiritual center on the Silk Road from Europe to China, developed a remarkably diverse population, including Tajiks, Persians, Uzbeks, Arabs, Jews, and Russians. Samarkand, and all of West Turkestan, was incorporated into the Russian Empire in the middle of the nineteenth century and has retained its ethnic diversity up to the present. Prokudin-Gorskii captures here a group of Jewish boys, in traditional dress, studying with their teacher.


Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Group of Jewish Children with a Teacher, 1911.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-04442) (7)

Group of Jewish Children with a Teacher
Profile of an Uzbek Woman

Profile of a Nomad

In this portrait, Prokudin-Gorksii captures the traditional dress, jewelry, and hairstyle of an Uzbek woman standing on a richly decorated carpet at the entrance to a yurt, a portable tent used for housing by the nomadic peoples of Central Asia. After conquering Turkestan in the mid 1800s, the Russian government exerted strong pressure on the nomadic peoples to adopt a sedentary lifestyle and settle permanently in villages, towns, and cities.


Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Profile of an Uzbek Woman. . ., ca. 1907-1915.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-04442) (8)

Prisoners in a Zindan with Guard

Five inmates stare out from a zindan, a traditional Central Asian prison--in essence a pit in the earth with a low structure built on top. The guard, with Russian rifle and bayonet, is attired in Russian-style uniform and boots.


Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
A Zindan (prison). . ., ca. 1907-1915.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-04416) (9)

A Zindan (prison). . .
Dagestani Types

Portrait of a Dagestani Couple

A couple in traditional dress poses for a portrait in the mountainous interior region of Gunib on the north slope of the Caucasus Mountains in what is today the Dagestan Republic of the Russian Federation.


Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Dagestani Types, ca. 1907-1915.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-04437) (10)

Chinese Foreman at the
Chakva Tea Farm

A Chinese foreman poses with established tea plants and new plantings at a tea farm and processing plant in Chakva, a small town just north of Batumi. The semi-tropical climate of the Black Sea coast in modern-day Georgia was ideal for growing tea.


Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Tea Factory in Chakva.
Chinese Foreman Lau-Dzhen-Dzhau
,
ca. 1907-1915.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-04429) (11)

Tea Factory in Chakva. Chinese Foreman Lau-Dzhen-Dzhau
Dagestani Types

Study of a Dagestani Man

Dagestan, meaning "land of mountains" in the Turkic languages, contains a population consisting of many nationalities, including Avars, Lezgi, Noghay, Kumuck, and Tabasarans. Pictured here is a Sunni Muslim man of undetermined nationality wearing traditional dress and headgear, with a sheathed dagger at his side.


Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Dagestani Types, ca. 1907-1915.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-04436) (12)

Russian Children on a Hillside

Children sit on the side of a hill near a church and bell-tower in the countryside near White Lake, in the north of European Russia.


Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
A Group of Children, 1909.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-04421) (13)

A Group of Children
A Settler's Family

Russian Settlers in the Borderlands

Ethnic Russian settlers to the Mugan Steppe region, south of the Caucasus Mountains and west of the Caspian Sea, established a small settlement named Grafovka. The region is immediately north of the border with Persia. Settlement of Russians in non-European parts of the empire, and particularly in border regions, was encouraged by official government policy and accounts for much of the Russian migration to Siberia, the Far East, and the Caucasus regions.


Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
A Settler's Family, ca. 1907-1915.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-04435) (14)


Library of Congress
Contact Us ( December 9, 2003 )