These photographs offer us a snapshot into Russia before the revolution and the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II.
It’s difficult to believe that these photographs are almost a hundred years old – such was the genius of photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii who lived between 1863 and1944.
We see Russia before and during World War I and the coming Russian revolution.
In fact, Gorskii’s work had the support of Tsar Nicholas II to work on this exhibition. Between 1909-1912, and again in 1915, he completed surveys of eleven regions of Russia, traveling in a railroad car provided by the Ministry of Transportation.
Following the revolution in 1918, Gorsky left Russia, going first to Norway and England before settling in France.
The importance of his work did not go unnoticed. His unique images of Russia on the eve of revolution-recorded on glass plates and in colour-were purchased by the Library of Congress in the USA in 1948 from his heirs.
To this day, people buy prints of his work for it unique aesthetic values and history.
