Cementing the Foundation of
a Sluice Dam
Workers and supervisors pause for a photograph amid preparations for pouring cement foundations for a sluice dam across the Oka River southeast of Moscow, near the small town of Dedinovo.

The Bakalskii Mine
The Ural Mountain region is noted for the richness of its iron deposits and ores. The Bakaly hills, in the area outside the city of Ekaterinburg, provide the locale for a small-scale family mining operation.

Cotton Field in Sukhumi Botanical Garden
The moderate, Mediterranean-like climate of the Black Sea region allowed cultivation of crops that would not grow in most parts of the empire, such as tea and cotton. Sukhumi, on the east coast of the Black Sea in what is now the northwestern part of the Republic of Georgia, had an important botanical garden and experimentation station. Shown here is a stand of cotton plants at the Sukhumi Botanical Gardens.

Harvesting Tea
Workers, identified by Prokudin-Gorskii as Greeks, pose while harvesting tea from plants spreading over rolling hills near Chakva, on the east coast of the Black Sea. This region of the Russian Empire, in present day Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, had a significant Greek minority, some families going back many centuries to the Classical and Byzantine eras.

Production of Artistic Casting
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.

Textile Mill Interior
Shown here is the interior of a textile mill that produces thread from locally grown cotton. The location, though unidentified, is most likely in Tashkent which is known for textile production. Because of the warm, dry climate, Central Asia--and particularly Uzbekistan--was an ideal location for growing and processing cotton for the entire empire.

Fabric Merchant
A merchant at the Samarkand market displays colorful silk, cotton, and wool fabrics as well as a few traditional carpets. A framed page of the Koran hangs at the top of the stall.

Melon Vendor
Dressed in traditional Central Asian attire, a vendor of locally grown melons poses at his stand in the marketplace of Samarkand in present-day Uzbekistan

Tea Weighing Station
This photo shows the interior of a tea packaging and weighing operation located at the Chakva tea farm and processing plant just north of Batumi, close to the Black Sea coast in what is now the Republic of Georgia. The Chakva farm and plant was one of the major suppliers of tea to all parts of the Russian Empire.

Turkmen Camel Driver
Wearing traditional dress and headgear, a Turkmen camel driver poses with his camel, laden with what is most likely grain or cotton. Camel caravans remained the most common means of transporting food, raw materials, and manufactured goods in Central Asia well into the railroad era.

Study of Three Generations, Zlatoust
A. P. Kalganov poses with his son and granddaughter for a portrait in the industrial town of Zlatoust in the Ural Mountain region of Russia. The son and granddaughter are employed at the Zlatoust Arms Plant--a major supplier of armaments to the Russian military since the early 1800s. Kalganov displays traditional Russian dress and beard styles, while the two younger generations have more Westernized, modern dress and hair styles.

Windmills in Ialutorovsk County
Wooden mills using wind-power to grind wheat and rye are photographed in the middle of summer on the vast Siberian plain in rural Ialutorovsk county in Western Siberia.

Bashkir Switchman
on the Trans-Siberian
A Bashkir switch operator poses by the mainline of the railroad, near the town of Ust’ Katav on the Yuryuzan River between Ufa and Cheliabinsk in the Ural Mountain region of European Russia.

Towpath Bridge in the Village of Lava
A stone bridge carries the canal towpath over two culverts to divert high water away from the main canal on a quiet stretch between Lakes Ladoga and Onega near the village of Lava.

Locomotive
A "Compound" locomotive with a Schmidt boiler is shown on the railroad between Perm’ and Ekaterinburg in the Ural Mountain region in the far eastern part of European Russia. The rail car in the background is thought to be Prokudin-Gorskii’s traveling photographic laboratory and living quarters.

Log Rafts on the Peter I Canal, Shlisselburg
Logs fastened together as rafts make their way down the Peter I Canal near the small town of Shlisselburg, now called Petrokrepost’. Located on Lake Ladoga, the town is forty miles east of St. Petersburg.

Kareshka Boat Yards
A variety of canal boats and barges, large and small, are evident at a boat yard at a sheltered inlet off the southwest shore of Lake Onega on the Mariinskii canal system near the small town of Voznesenie in the north of European Russia.

Metal Truss Railroad Bridge
At an unidentified location, a railroad truss bridge built on stone support columns crosses one of the wide Siberian rivers that flow northwards to the Arctic Ocean--possibly the Irtysh or the Tobol. The rivers were only one of the natural barriers that the builders of the Trans-Siberian Railroad had to conquer in the feat of constructing a railroad over 6,000 miles, from central European Russia eastward to the Pacific Ocean.

Portrait of Pinkhus Karlinsky,
84 Years Old
Pinkhus Karlinskii, the supervisor of the Chernigov floodgate, stands by a ferry dock along the Mariinskii Canal system in the northern part of European Russia. In the photo album of his tour of the canal system, Prokudin-Gorskii noted that Karlinskii was eighty-four years old and had served for sixty-six years. The canal system, known today as the Volga-Baltic Waterway, was constructed to link the extensive river system of the Volga and its tributaries to provide access from the interior of European Russia to the Baltic Sea.

Handcar on the Murmansk Railroad
Prokudin-Gorskii and others ride the Murmansk Railroad in a handcar along the shores of Lake Onega near Petrozavodsk. From the beginning of Russian railroad construction in the 1850s, rails were laid using a wider gauge (5 feet 3.5 inches) than the standard European one.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.