100 year-old color photos of Russia

This too - color photos from WWII

If only it was built on a real model of communism. Le sigh. Beautiful paradisaical pictures. Well, not the people at work so much.

Dude. There is no real model of communism. Don't ever change.

haha love those captions ("no gas")

Wow, these are gorgeous.

Don't ever change.

I shan't.

haha love those captions ("no gas")

Yes and look how sad those nazis are about it. Completely downtrodden.
:(

I don't think I've ever seen old photographs that really give such a sense of being-there; these are so detailed and colorful that it provides a great perspective. Wow.

Actually I think there's a separate thread about this! Various color photos of the time have circulated or been published over the years -- they're all quite striking.

http://www.ww2incolor.com/gallery/albums/germans/airship.thumb.jpg

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87-6458-th.jpg

Yeah that last one is awesome.

Wouldn't you love to see that Wizard of Oz Ali Baba type shit roof around where you live? Maybe a nice house in the suburbs interspersed with the old colonials and tudors? Emerald city ice cream hats.

As long as no communists come with it, yeah. ;P

there's no such thing as a communist.

it is true that American architecture is by and large painfully lame and uninteresting

an American masterpiece:
http://www.mmci.us/light_pictures/lpics_mmci/hr_SteakNShakeNeon1.jpg

yeah ive seen these. theyre sweet. ill look for the color photos of HITLERS CHANCELLORY.

also curtis otm (about steak n shake)

yeah i cant find them but some of them were mega-eerie

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87-5006.jpg

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.

I like these:

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/9301/frtrancheemg4.jpg
No man's land, June 16, 1917.

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/2451/frmatrozennd4.jpg
French sailors.

http://www.tournassoud.org/img/militaire/lg/2-8-370-lg.jpg
French soldiers in 1915.

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. 1906 – 1907.

http://sechtl-vosecek.ucw.cz/en/images/prokudin-gorsky/big/04416u.jpg

French sailors = stereotype central

http://ternaeanoite.blogs.sapo.pt/arquivo/Querelle%202.jpg

ya rly where are their baguettes

ah, the French and their beautiful blue uniforms. No wonder they lost.

except that they didn't.

In actual battle, they lost. In getting bailed out and not appreciating it, they won!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autochrome

There are usually a couple dozen Autochromes up on Ebay at any given time, if you want to own some turn of the century color photography of your own.

Hey, that's a good tip.

Wouldn't you love to see that Wizard of Oz Ali Baba type shit roof around where you live?

St. Theodosius Cathedral, Cleveland, OH:

http://z.about.com/d/cleveland/1/0/5/3/-/-/stthedosius.jpg

That Saddam Hussein looking motherfucker is drunk. And why wouldn't he be? Look at all the petrol in the water. He's got a mismatched crazy green belt on his big brother's hand-me-down full-length coat which he wears in the summer because he's homeless. His "job" is to ferry people across a back yard stream. Meanwhile, the people who live there already have a boat. A legless child observes from atop stone wall.

I love how seeing what we think of as a black and white era in color makes it look more accessible.

These are wonderful too:

http://www.gridenko.com/pg1/images/00548.jpg
View from the rear platform of the Simskaia Station of the Samara-Zlatoust Railway, 1910.

http://sechtl-vosecek.ucw.cz/en/images/prokudin-gorsky/big/04435u.jpg
Settler's family. The village of Grafovka. "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." 1907 – 1915.

That Saddam Hussein looking motherfucker is drunk. And why wouldn't he be? Look at all the petrol in the water. He's got a mismatched crazy green belt on his big brother's hand-me-down full-length coat which he wears in the summer because he's homeless. His "job" is to ferry people across a back yard stream. Meanwhile, the people who live there already have a boat. A legless child observes from atop stone wall.

Its caption is, "Pinkhus Karlinsky, 84 Years old, 66 years in service. Supervisor of the Chernigov flood gates. 1909."

More pictures here:
http://sechtl-vosecek.ucw.cz/en/expozice5.html

awesome

Yeah Ive seen these before, these pics are amazing. It really is strange seeing stuff like this in colour.

Great stuff, but I can't get Calvin's Dad's line of BS about the world turning from black and white into color out of my head now.

that last one (of the family) is really beautiful - i'd love a print for my wall.

Amazing photos from early 20th century Russia

Thank ya Stan, I knew it was around somewhere...

np!

I seem to recall there was a similar thread about (US) depression era pictures that had just been added to some sort of National Archive somehow, but I can't find it...

could have been only this link, though:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2004/05/07/magazine/20040509PORT_SLIDESHOW_1.html

This one should be an album cover:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87-5251.jpg

All yours,
Babooshka, babooshka, babooshka-ya-ya!

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87_7010__01477_.jpg

Trayce OTM. (they should ALL be album covers)

Yes. Also those three little maids are standing in front of one bocketty looking house.

prokudin-gorskii is one of the great documentarians. he's like the audubon of photography or something. he is one of the few that is able to reach through time (think, 100 years on!) in my opinion. the library of congress bought his entire collection and it's up on their website in hi-res tiffs.

http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/5567/21664vxl5.jpg

fuuuuck so rad

I love downloading the B/W tri-plate versions from the Library Of Congress and reconstructing them myself. The first one I ever did was the Simskaia Station pic upthread - back then, they only had colour versions of a few of the pictures available, most only being in B/W

http://www.symbolicforest.com/blog/2005/12/28/ringing-the-changes/
http://www.symbolicforest.com/blog/2006/01/02/more-photos/

I particularly like these:

http://www.symbolicforest.com/img/01016u_3.jpg
http://www.symbolicforest.com/img/thumbnail/01194u_4.jpg

Bah, I didn't mean to post the thumbnail of that second one

http://www.symbolicforest.com/img/01194u_3.jpg

actually, they were donated to the LOC by produkin-gorskii's children. and yeah, it's fun to put them back together in photoshop!

the people and wide-open country help a bit but i can't really look at these through 100 y.o. eyes, cuz i can't eliminate the detritus of 100 years from my brane

the people and wide-open country help a bit but i can't really look at these through 100 y.o. eyes, cuz i can't eliminate the detritus of 100 years from my brane