Photographer to the Tsar: Revealing the Silk Road February 15, 2010

The fabled Silk Road spanned several thousand miles, connecting East and West, stretching from China and India to Central Asia, Afghanistan and the Mediterranean Sea. For two millennia, exotic goods, as well as artistic styles and cultural traditions migrated in both directions leaving a lasting impact on civilizations across vast expanses. The Silk Road became a symbol of economic and cultural exchange between East and West. Central Asia became the possession of the Russian Empire through conquest in the second half of the 19th century. To conduct a visual survey of these far reaches of the Empire, Tsar Nicholas II commissioned the innovative chemist and photographer Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskii to travel there by rail in the early years of the 20th century. He documented an amazing scope of subjects: ancient ruins and vivid street scenes, local clothing and housing, beggars, merchants, horsemen, and khans imprinted on color slides of unprecedented quality. The exhibit features 26 photographs, presented in custom-made light boxes.