This photograph was taken in 1911 by Russian photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky. It’s not a color photograph but rather three separate black-and-white photographs taken in rapid succession, each shot through a different color filter. These glass plate negatives could then be stacked and projected through corresponding filters to create a full-color image.

Tsar Nicholas II personally commissioned Prokudin-Gorsky to document the vast expanse of early 20th-century Russia, providing him with a specially equipped railroad car that served as both a darkroom and a mobile studio.