RT by @mikenov: The historical early color photograph shows a zindan (traditional Central Asian prison) in Bukhara, Uzbekistan (then part of the Russian Empire), taken around 1907 by the pioneering photographer Sergey Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky…. What you are looking at is a zindan—a traditional, medieval subterranean prison dungeon common in Central Asia. Five inmates look up from the darkness through a heavy wooden grate at ground level, while a uniformed guard stands over them with a rifle. It is a grim, raw capture of the region’s judicial and penal system under imperial Russian oversight. This is not a colorized photo!!!! Long before modern color film, Prokudin-Gorsky traveled the e

The historical early color photograph shows a zindan (traditional Central Asian prison) in Bukhara, Uzbekistan (then part of the Russian Empire), taken around 1907 by the pioneering photographer Sergey Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky….

What you are looking at is a zindan—a traditional, medieval subterranean prison dungeon common in Central Asia. Five inmates look up from the darkness through a heavy wooden grate at ground level, while a uniformed guard stands over them with a rifle.

It is a grim, raw capture of the region’s judicial and penal system under imperial Russian oversight.

This is not a colorized photo!!!!

Long before modern color film, Prokudin-Gorsky traveled the empire with a specialized camera. He took three rapid black-and-white exposures through red, green, and blue filters. When projected together, they created the vibrant, true-to-life colors we see today. His genius allows us to witness history exactly as it looked over 110 years ago.

Tragically, we are lucky to even see this image. Following the Communist Revolution of 1917, Prokudin-Gorsky fled Russia. While he managed to smuggle out about half of his work, a massive portion of his unique photographic glass plates was confiscated and permanently lost to history.

The surviving glass plate negatives were eventually purchased from his heirs and are now preserved by the Library of Congress.

Seeing this rare, surviving moment in vivid color makes the past feel so much closer to our own time.

#archaeohistories

— @histories_arch Oct 17, 2026