Found this last year while I was on sabbatical, but I adore this collection of colour photographs taken in the Russian Empire between 1909 and 1912.

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images. The high quality of the images, combined with the bright colors, make it difficult for viewers to believe that they are looking 100 years back in time – when these photographs were taken, neither the Russian Revolution nor World War I had yet begun.

Fascinating, stunning stuff.

34 photographs appear on The Boston Globe‘s website; the full collection of hundreds is in the Library of Congress.