3-006-947 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Man standing next to cotton plants at the Sukhumi Botanical Gardens, between 1905 and 1915. The moderate, Mediterranean-like climate of the Black Sea region allowed cultivation of crops that would not grow in most parts of the Russian empire, such as tea and cotton. Sukhumi on the east coast of the Black Sea in what is now the northwestern part of the Republic of Georgia, had an important botanical garden and experimentation station. Russian chemist and photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944) was a pioneer in colour photography which he used to document early 20th-century Russia and her empire, including the vanishing way of life of tribal peoples along the Silk Route in Central Asia. In a railway-carriage darkroom provided by Czar Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorsky used the three-colour photography process to record traditional costumes and occupations, churches and mosques - many now Unesco World Heritage sites - as well as modernisation in agriculture, industry and transport.