Thanks to Michael Shevloff’s father for forwarding on more details and presentation of colour images by the great Russian Photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii from the early 1900’s documenting the Russian Empire.
These are stunning colour images from over 100 years ago!
The 5.8MB file is available for download.
The US Library of Congress purchased the original glass plates for this collection of 1,902 images back in 1948. More details at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/prok/