Between 1907 and 1915, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii rode through even restricted parts of pre-revolutionary Russia in his specially fitted dark-room rail car, shooting color photos (a technology still in its infancy) by a method of his own invention. He took three consecutive photos of his subjects with three separate filters – red, green, and blue – and then combined them into full-color projections, thereby capturing a huge range of architecture, infrastructure, and people.

The photos have now been digitally restored in a project undertaken by the Library of Congress and can be seen online: www.newsweek.com/id/214585

The collection of photos includes the only known color photograph of Leo Tolstoy, as well as a self-portrait of the artist.