Russia before the Revolution

[Cumannach]

There's some photos that comrades might find interesting here;

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/

Showing the Russian Empire in the years before the great event.

They're by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii. Here's a couple:

Russian peasant girls, 1909;

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87-5251.jpg

Workers harvesting tea, Black Sea region c. 1910;

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87_7055__01522_.jpg

Tbilisi, Georgia, where Stalin was running amok, taken about 1910;


http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87_7311__01676_.jpg

[Dimentio]

Beautiful images, but probably a bit altered to glorify the tsarist era. I notice that the clothes are very clean and colourful for example, or at least made to look so by the restorator.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Beautiful images, but probably a bit altered to glorify the tsarist era. I notice that the clothes are very clean and colourful for example, or at least made to look so by the restorator.
Maybe they washed them nicely? :D

The pictures don't look really glorified, I mean it probably just focuses on Tsarist Russia simply because it's an era that isn't documented photographically; and you cant really search for Russian historical photographs without getting results from Soviet times. Maybe it was made to show how shitty it really was?

Anyways, that last picture of Tibilisi is fantastic.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Were these photos originally taken in color? If so, I was just going to say that's impressive if they were, considering the dates.

[Cumannach]

From the website; "We know that Prokudin-Gorskii intended his photographic images to be viewed in color because he developed an ingenious photographic technique in order for these images to be captured in black and white on glass plate negatives, using red, green and blue filters. He then presented these images in color in slide lectures using a light-projection system [right] involving the same three filters."

His photographs depicting the Russian Empire were sponsered by the Tsar himself, so it's no wonder they make it come off well. Look at the factories;

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87_43x__00033_.jpg

A textile mill;

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87_111x__00093_.jpg

And the Russian proletariat, soon to be the expropriators.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87_4207__00507_.jpg

"Founded in 1747, the Kasli Iron Works, was located in the heart of the Ural Mountains between the cities of Ekaterinburg and Cheliabinsk--a region rich in iron ore. The plant was known for the high quality of its cast iron products and for its highly-skilled work force, which numbered over three thousand persons at the time this photograph was taken."