Hey everyone, I’d like to start off by introducing myself. My name is Casey Pietsch; I am a History major and a senior this year. Good luck to everyone in this class and I look forward to learning more about Russia throughout this semester! I decided to write my first official blog post on the […]
Week 1 Posts
Transportation during war
by •
Hello and welcome to my first ever blog! I am Matt and I’m effectively a junior but this is my first year at Virginia Tech. I’m an International Exchange student from London, here to study for one year. My major is History and I chose African American Studies for my minor. Being that I […]
Turkmen Camel Driver from the Prokudin-Gorskii Collection
by •
“Wearing traditional dress and headgear, a Turkmen camel driver poses with his camel, laden with what is most likely grain or cotton. Camel caravans remained the most common means of transporting food, raw materials, and manufactured goods in Central Asia well into the railroad era.” Trade between Russia and China flourished along the silk […]
Jews in Russia: Paled in Comparison to Other Ethnic Groups
by •
Agriculture and The Peasantry of Imperial Russia
by •
This photograph from the Prokudin-Gorskii collection shows a large agricultural area in the Russian countryside. Farms of all types could be found throughout the vast Russian Empire, where peasant workers toiled for their livelihoods. The peasantry made up the vast majority of the Russian population, being at the lowest level of the feudal […]
Week 1- Prokudin-Gorskii
by •
Hello HIST 3644 Bloggers! While searching through the Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record on the Library of Congress website, this image immediately grabbed my attention. A popular means of agricultural product transportation, … Continue Reading →
Could Sergei have known?
by •
As I was looking through the collection of photographs in the Library of Congress site I c0uld not help but be amazed by the detail that was apparent at one hundred years old! The color and definition would not be … Continue reading →
Kharitonov’s House Yekaterinburg, Russia
by •
Image: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/prok/item/prk2000000588/ The Kharitonov house is located in the Urals of Russia. The house was built by Lev Rastorguyev in 1794, one of the wealthiest merchants in the region at the time. Rastorguyev associated with the Old Believers of Russia, which are a group of Russian Orthodox Christians that separated from the main Russian Orthodox […]
The Village of Kolchedan
by •
The photograph I have chosen is of a village in Russia by the name of Kolchedan . One might wonder the significance of such a picture to someone so important as the ruler of a country. The Reasoning behind this photo, as far as I have learned, is to give an example of the average […]
A Peak Behind the Iron Curtain…Before the Iron Was Able to Exist
by •
Unlike some students in this course, or possibly like many, I’ve been taught many aspects of Russian and Soviet History. However, these come only from the perspective on into the context of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain that … Continue reading →