100 Year Old Color Photographs of Russia

(click to view the full image)
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Peasant Girls, 1909.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-03984) (4)

(click to view the full image)
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
Mills in Ialutorovsk Uyezd of
Tobol´sk Province, 1912.
Digital color rendering.
Prints and Photographs Division
(LC-DIG-ppmsc-03965) (23)

My friend C. A. "Von" E. recently came across this Newsweek collection of early 20th century color photographs from Russia. They are really stunning.

Upon further research, it looks like this was a Library of Congress project-- they took photographer Prokudin-Gorskii's negatives (which he intended to be in color, because he took the photographs using red, green, and blue filters) and converted them digitally. The explaination of the process is really fascinating, and can be read about here. Prokudin-Gorskii's biography is here.

Oh, Library of Congress, how I adore thee.