Russian Empire in Portraits: Different People Captured by American Explorer
Russian Empire in Portraits: Different People Captured by American Explorer
American journalist and researcher George Kennan from Ohio was one of the first foreigners who took photos of the subjects of the Russian Empire in the late 19th century. Take a look at the diverse variety of people and their lives in Tsarist Russia, seen through eyes of an American explorer.
American journalist and researcher George Kennan from Ohio was one of the first foreigners who took photos of the subjects of the Russian Empire in the late 19th century. Take a look at the diverse variety of people and their lives in Tsarist Russia, seen through eyes of an American explorer.
A man and his daughters
In 1864, Kennan joined a research team exploring possible telegraph routes through the Bering Strait and Siberia to Europe. For two years he investigated unfamiliar areas and met representatives of completely exotic peoples, as well as highly educated people, dressed in the Western style.
A Georgian woman
Six years after his first visit to Russia, Kennan came back to the country, starting his journey from St. Petersburg ( then the capital of the Empire), traveling down the Volga to the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus mountains, where he met with Georgians, Armenians and many ethnic groups living there.
A Transcaucasian man
The third time Kennan came across the Atlantic was 15 years after his second visit. By that time he had become a well-known journalist in his home country and regularly lectured on Russia. Kennan traveled from St. Petersburg to the Altai Mountains near the Kazakhstan border, closer to Mongolia and China, and he also visited the gold mines on the Kara River in Siberia.
The grand lama of the Selenginsk lamasery
This lamasery (also called the Tamchinsky datsan, or Gusinoozyorsk Datsan) is a Buddhist monastery founded in the mid-18th century in the village of Gusinoye Ozero , Buryat Republic, Russia. In 1809, the monastery became "the center of Buddhism in eastern Siberia."