Pre-Soviet Uzbekistan Captured In Perfect Color (11 pics)
I found this group of photos hard to choose from. So, I posted most of them.
https://www.rferl.org/a/pre-soviet-uzbekistan-in-perfect-color-photos/30608080.html
Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky (second from left) waiting in vain for a break in the clouds to observe a solar eclipse from Central Asia’s Tien-Shan mountains on January 1, 1907.
Several years before he was famously commissioned by the tsar to photograph the Russian Empire in color, chemist Prokudin-Gorsky set off on an expedition to what is now Uzbekistan to observe a solar eclipse.
A carpenter strips bark from fresh timber on a back road in Samarkand.
An Islamic shrine stands inside the Bahoutdin Architectural Complex on the outskirts of Bukhara. The heavily-restored shrine still stands
A man pauses a moment from grilling meat over hot coals at a restaurant in Samarkand.
A view over central Samarkand from Registan Square
Men sell medicinal products in Samarkand.
A bureaucrat stands outside the emir's palace in Bukhara.
It’s unclear when the more than 200 photos Prokudin-Gorsky shot in Central Asia were taken, but photos like this -- of Bukhara's interior minister with a ceremonial sword, which required access to government buildings -- were probably made during the 1911 expeditions, when the photographer had a letter of recommendation from the tsar.
Two shackled prisoners from Bukhara’s notorious dungeon
The photo was taken just a few meters from the "bug pit" where two British officers were tortured before eventually being beheaded in 1842 by the emir of Bukhara.
Men are held in the "debtors prison" inside the Bukhara dungeon.
Bukharans who owed either taxes to the government or money to other people were held in the prison but allowed out to work until they had repaid their debts.
A building inside the emir's palace in Bukhara
= new reply since forum marked as read
They were sometimes used after a broad axe roughed out the timber, sometimes used exclusively from barking to finished form. In this area, they were used up into the '60s for making railroad ties.
For smooth work, the foot acted as a chip breaker (same function as the part in a hand plane by the same name) -- hence, foot adze. Some workers had one shoe with an extra thick sole for that purpose.
The one in the photo in the OP appears to have a straight handle. A recurved handle is more common (a stretched and flattened 'S'). Mine has such a handle. Here's a photo showing a curved handle:
And an illustration from an Eric Sloane book:
Thanks for the mental floss!
