3-007-149 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Corner of the Likanskii palace, between 1905 and 1915. The Likany foothills of the Caucasus Mountains provide a dramatic backdrop for a palace built on the Kura River, close to the Russian border with Turkey and near the town of Borzhomi in present-day Georgia. The Romanov Palace, also known as Likani Palace, was designed by Leon Benois for {/30401/}. 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.