Today, Vytegra is a small town (since 1773) with a population of about 10,300 people standing on the banks of the Vytegra River, 337 km north-west of Vologda, the capital of Vologda Oblast.

This is a unique opportunity to see what this place looked like 116 years ago – in 1909. This is possible thanks to the unique color photographs taken by Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky, a Russian chemist and photographer known for his pioneering work in color photography. Source.

General view of Vytegra and the Vytegra River.

back to the past

Tags: Russian Empire · Vologda oblast

As of 2025, Russia is the only country in the world that has a nuclear icebreaker fleet. Nuclear icebreakers ensure safe navigation in the Arctic and are a key link in the work on the Northern Sea Route.

Today’s Russian universal nuclear icebreakers of Project 22220 can operate without refueling for up to 7 years, and their food supplies last for more than half a year. Even the crew changes at sea when the icebreakers meet in the ice. Photos by: Slava Stepanov.

clearing paths through the ice

Tags: Murmansk city · Vladivostok city

In the mid-1950s, rich deposits of diamonds were discovered in Yakutia. The kimberlite pipe “Mir” was discovered in 1955. A new town named after it was founded near the future quarry, located about 1,100 km from Yakutsk.

Today, the town of Mirny with a population of about 34 thousand people has several large quarries and mining and processing plants for diamond mining. It is often called the capital of the diamond region or the diamond capital of Russia. Mirny on Google Maps. Photos by Stepanov Slava.

one of the largest excavated holes in the world

Tags: Sakha Republic · Yakutsk city

Tobolsk is a city in Russia with a population of about 100 thousand people, located at the confluence of the Tobol and the Irtysh rivers, about 250 km northeast of Tyumen. It was founded as the center of the development of Siberia in 1587, about 17 km from the Tatar settlement of Sibier (also known as Kashlyk, Isker), the capital of the Siberian Khanate (1468-1598).

From the end of the 16th to the 18th centuries, it was the main military, administrative, political, and religious center of Siberia. Today, Tobolsk is the second most populous city in Tyumen Oblast. Photos by: Anton Petrus.

picturesque old Siberian city

Tags: Tobolsk city · Tyumen oblast

Suzdal is a small town-reserve with a population of about 9,300 people located in the northern part of Vladimir Oblast in the center of the European Russia. It is one of the oldest towns in the country, first mentioned in written sources about 1,000 years ago.

Let’s see what Suzdal looked like in the relatively recent past, in the last years of the Russian Empire. In 1912, it was visited by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, a Russian chemist and photographer known for his pioneering work in color photography. At that time, the population of Suzdal was about 7,700 people. Photos by: Open research project “The Legacy of S.M. Prokudin-Gorsky”.

General view of Suzdal.

back to the past

Tags: Russian Empire · Vladimir oblast

Kamchatka, a peninsula in Russia, is located in the north-eastern part of Eurasia. The peninsula, stretching from north to south for 1,200 km, is washed by the Sea of Okhotsk in the west, the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean in the east. The total area of Kamchatka is about 270 thousand square km.

A significant part of the territory of the Kamchatka Peninsula is allocated to specially protected areas. Among them are 3 state reserves, 5 natural parks, 8 federal and 23 local reserves, 105 natural monuments, 2 sanatorium-resort areas, and some other types of protected areas. The most photogenic representatives of the local fauna are numerous bears and foxes. Photos by: Andrei Kireev.

the beauty of untouched nature

Tags: Kamchatka krai

The period from 1853 to 1917 was the most interesting period in the development of the Russian Navy. After the Crimean War of 1853-1855, steam Navy began to develop rapidly. By the end of the 1850s, the Russian fleet started to operate in the oceans.

During the second half of the 19th century, the Russian Empire created a modern for that time armored fleet. In the early 20th century, the country had the third largest fleet in the world. On these photos made in this period you can see the battleships of this once mighty fleet.

historical photos of the Russian Imperial Fleet

Tags: Russian Empire

Syktyvkar is a city with a population of about 220 thousand people, the capital of the Komi Republic, located in the north-east of the European part of Russia.

The distance from Moscow to Syktyvkar (in a straight line) is about 1,000 km in a northeasterly direction. Its name, translated from the Komi language, means “the city on the Sysola River”. Photos by: Slava Stepanov.

fly over Syktyvkar

Tags: Komi Republic · Syktyvkar city

The anthropological album “Russians” by Anatoly Petrovich Bogdanov and Matthias Zikov was published in 15 copies in Moscow in 1867. Source

Abram Gavrilov, Svishchevo village, Uglich district, Yaroslavl Governorate (37 years old).

Russians in 1867

Tags: Russian Empire

Franz Josef Land is an archipelago (a group of islands located close together) in the Arctic Ocean, in northern Europe. It is the northernmost archipelago of Russia stretching for 375 km from east to west and 234 km from north to south.

It is part of Arkhangelsk Oblast and consists of more than 200 islands with a total area of about 16,134 square km. Franz Josef Land on Google Maps. Photos by: Slava Stepanov.

pristine nature of the Russian Arctic

Tags: Arkhangelsk oblast