Photographs from Imperial St. Petersburg

The photographs in this rich collection of timeless images captures St. Petersburg - the capital of Imperial Russia - in its heyday in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Tsarist Russia is shown as the personification of all that is splendid in a disappearing world, a world of unimaginable wealth and concentrated power. Accurately portraying a flamboyant world that was soon to pass and foreseeing darker days ahead, St. Petersburg's master photographers, led by the famous early chronicler Karl Bulla, here reveal their St. Petersburg, the imperial capital of splendor and foreboding, of certainties and contradictions. The book includes 120 photographs of the city in all her glory, her famous people and their lavish styles, all collected from the Central State Archive of Film and Photo Documents of St. Petersburg.