The rarest color photographs of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century

These photos were taken in 1911, but they are not at all black and white, as they should be, since pictures in color began to appear only 50-60 years ago. A reasonable question will be: how is this possible? To answer it, it is necessary to begin the story in 1906, when the great chemist Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky, who graduated from the Petersburg Institute of Technology and had a great love for photography, published articles describing the principles of color photography.

His method of transmitting a color image was based on the separation of colors: he shot the selected object three times, using different filters - red, blue and green.

The result was three black and white positive plates, from which he simultaneously projected all three images onto the screen using a three-section slide projector with blue, red and green light. So the audience could see real full-color images.

The next step in the life of Prokudin-Gorsky was the compilation of a photographic record of the Russian Empire. With this idea, he turned to Nicholas II and received full support from the king. The scientist-photographer was even given a special railway carriage, which was equipped with everything necessary for traveling around Russia in order to capture the life of the country.

During the trip, he managed to shoot more than one thousand plates, containing a whole gallery of unprecedented in quality, amazing photos. After the death of Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorsky had to move to Paris, but he was able to take his priceless collection with him.

In the 1920s, when the scientist was already living in Nice, he decided to show color slides to the local Russian community in order to help the young Russian generation, located on a foreign land, remember what their homeland looked like.

Since then, this collection of photographic plates has had to go through numerous movements and German occupation, and in 1948 it was bought from the sons of Professor Prokudin-Gorsky by a wealthy representative of the Rockefeller Foundation. Having paid $ 5,000, he acquired 1,600 records, which were stored in the American Library of Congress for many years.

And just not so long ago, someone suggested making a scan of Sergey Mikhailovich's plates and using a computer to combine the triples of his photographs. The incredible happened! The images that were considered forever lost, captured in 1911 by a Russian scientist, came to life again. And now we have a unique opportunity to look at them with our own eyes!