3-006-965 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Village of Farab, Turkmenistan; Railroad station and tracks, between 1905 and 1915. Station on the Chardzhou-Bukhara railroad. Signs on the station building read "FARAB." Farab, a settlement of the urban type, is the centre of the Farab region of Chardzhou Province, Turkmenistan, on the right bank of the Amu Daria [Amu Darya River], 8 km. from Chardzhou. 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.