An Afro-Abkhazian mountaineer.
Image: Library of Congress
In 1864, young Ohioan George Kennan joined a crew of explorers scouting a possible telegraph route from the Bering Strait across Siberia to Europe as an alternative to a cable across the Atlantic.
After Kennan spent two years surveying frigid wilderness and encountering myriad indigenous peoples, the planned telegraph was abandoned with the completion of the Atlantic cable.
A devastated Kennan returned to the US with nothing but his diaries, which he adapted into a popular book, Tent Life in Siberia, and a successful lecture series.
He returned to Russia in 1870, sailing from St. Petersburg down the Volga to the Caspian Sea and roaming the highlands of the Caucasus, meeting Georgians, Armenians and dozens of ethnic groups.
After spending over a decade back in the US as a journalist, Kennan once again returned to Russia in 1885, heading east from St. Petersburg and exploring the Altai Mountains on the borders of Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China, all the way through Siberia to the gold mines along the Kara River.
In addition to recording the atrocious conditions of prisons and labor camps in Siberia (which would later get him expelled by the government), Kennan collected hundreds of cartes de visites — picture postcards which displayed the vast diversity of the emperor's subjects, from urban bureaucrats to recently-emancipated serfs to religious leaders and soldiers on the periphery of the sprawling empire.
Chechen men at a wedding.
Image: Library of Congress
Two Kazakh women, including a bride (left).
Image: Library of Congress
A Kazakh or Burut man.
Image: Library of Congress
Image: Library of Congress
Image: Library of Congress
Tatars in a small village near Minusinsk in central Russia.
Image: Library of Congress
A Georgian woman.
Image: Library of Congress
A Persian man.
Image: Library of Congress
The grand lama of the Selenginsk lamasery.
Image: Library of Congress
A Kazakh musician playing a dombra.
Image: Library of Congress
Kazakh horsemen.
Image: Library of Congress
A Georgian woman.
image: library of congress
An Armenian man.
Image: Library of Congress
A Transcaucasian man.
Image: Library of Congress
Image: Library of Congress
Tatar women and children.
Image: Library of Congress
Two musicians.
Image: Library of Congress
Aleksander Bek of Ingushetia in the North Caucasus.
Image: Library of Congress
Image: Library of Congress
Image: Library of Congress
Men from the Transcaucasus region.
Image: Library of Congress
A man and his daughters.
image: library of congress
A wealthy Buryat couple.
Image: Library of Congress
A woman in traditional dress.
Image: Library of Congress
A Kazakh couple.
Image: Library of Congress
An Arab man from Jerusalem.
Image: Library of Congress
A "Caucasian gipsy."
Image: Library of Congress
The muezzin (prayer caller) of a mosque in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Image: Library of Congress
An Armenian woman.
Image: Library of Congress
A mullah at a wedding.
Image: Library of Congress
Mr. Znamenskii, chief of police in the Siberian town of Minusinsk, with a stuffed wolf's head.
Image: Library of Congress
A Persian man with weapons.
Image: Library of Congress
Georgian men.
Image: Library of Congress
Georgian men.
Image: Library of Congress
A posting sledge in Siberia.
Image: Library of Congress
A Gor-ai-itz Christian mountaineer.
Image: Library of Congress
Christopher Fomich Makofskii, chief of police of Siberian city of Irkutsk.
Image: Library of Congress
A Dagestani mountaineer.
Image: Library of Congress
Dr. Aleksander Aleksandrovich Bunge, an Arctic explorer.
Image: Library of Congress
Dr. Sama.
Image: Library of Congress
A Georgian man.
Image: Library of Congress
An officer of a Sesghian regiment, St. Petersburg.
Image: Library of Congress
Alexander II, Emperor of Russia from 1855 to 1881.
Image: Library of Congress
-
Curation:
MORE FROM RETRONAUT
'Deadshot Mary': The undercover cop who became a tabloid sensation
A breathtaking 1915 photo tour of the mountains of the Holy Land
In World War I, British military industry was dominated by women
When engineers shut down Niagara Falls' water flow and found surprisingly few corpses
In 1913, suffragists crashed Woodrow Wilson's inauguration to demand the vote
Found photos capture generations of people posing for portraits on flimsy paper moons
The imposing Viking runestones which dot the Swedish countryside
The fantastical magicians' posters that hypnotized turn of the century audiences
This 509-year-old map contains the first known use of the word 'America' — but not where you may think
The inventor of the mug shot also photographed hands, feet and dead bodies
Last-minute holiday shopping was just as chaotic on the streets of 1910s New York
War diaries, murder mysteries and phrenology manuals: Retronaut's best historical photos of the year