Assumption Cathedral in the Goritskii Monastery, near Pereiaslavl-Zalesskii; 1911

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress). #

The Monastery of St Nil on Stolobny Island in Tver Guberniya

(Sergei Peokudin-Gorsky, 1910)

These are actual colour photographs, not hand-coloured black & white images.

Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky was part of the intellectual and technical upsurge that occurred in Russia at the turn of the 20th century.

The Revolution and Civil War put it to a halt, as many of the people of the educated classes fled Russia. It took another generation for the rodina to recover from that catastrophe.

Such people laid the groundwork for the industrialisation of the 20s and 30s, a development that gave Russia the material necessary for victory in the Second Great Patriotic War.