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67 Old Colorized Photos Reveal The Life Of Russian People Between 1900-1965
We at Bored Panda love to see history come alive, which is why we think you'll also like this series of colorized photos by Russian Flickr user klimbims. Historical life in Russia reads like a novel--which may be why it has been the subject of so many novels--and these vintage photos bring that forgotten way of life into the modern age.
If you like these interesting photos, be sure to also check out Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky's Russian color channel photography for another old-school way for photo restoration. But first, don't forget to vote on your favorite old photos below!
More info: flickr (h/t: designyoutrust)
This post may include affiliate links.
Family Nicholas Ii Of Russia, 1914
Russian czar's family. Very sad story. They were all brutally murdered in their basement shortly after the revolution in 1917.
Superbly done! The women especially. Difficult to believe this is colorized.
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The majority of the comments show no deep knowledge of Nicholas and his family. Educate yourselves, why don't you? Nick was a weak ruler with no real knowledge of politics thanks to his father's miscalculation. But his wife and daughters did great work to help the poor. They did their best and didn't deserve to be slaughtered the way they were.
People who are commenting negative and brutal s**t on the Czar family are a bunch of Rusophobic brats who couldn't be bothered to read some Russian history before righting their embarrassing comments! Russian rulers were always known to be the most educated rulers in Europe and never did anything worse than other monarchs. Go read your own history before disrespecting dead people who were true royals and whose ancestors have rules and built a great Empire! But I bet you'd rather watch Fox News channels and Keeping Up with Kardashians! #disgusted
Yup. She's sitting just to the right of her father.
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A beautiful family destroyed for nothing, look at that country now and what is in charge of it, I wonder if he has had his morning dose of white powder up his nose yet.
A Super hot family starts out with a Super Hot emperor Nickolas li his Royal Highness and his beautiful empress could only produce A hot Prince future hot Emperor & gorges Princesses Their end horrible !!! meaning no disgrace to This hot Royal CZAR Nickolas I wish I were his Queen always ready & willing to be used sexually by this CZAR, not one leader today is as hot as Nickolas li
Anyone notice the hand on "Sid's" shoulder?? Everyone else has their hands in their laps!
Looking at this picture and knowing the ugly long noses that killed these beautiful people, their children are alive and running things in America now, makes my blood boil. Oh dear Czar we are so sorry, forgive us.
I don't know if it's strange that the people revolted against a government who still employed slave labour in the 1900s. So yes sad but understandable.
Serfdom in Russia was abolished in 1861. The reasons for the revolution were in economy, sure. But there was no slave labour by that time.
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He got what he deserved for butchering his own people, crashing Freedoms and permiting Pogroms! Opression never pays off, eventualy pressure builds up!
Russian Tzar got what he deserved for butchering his own people and permiting Pogroms !
Для того, чтобы подорвать авторитет царя, было предложено предложено опубликовать его переписку с женой. И тогда была фраза: "ни в коем случае! Иначе народ признает их святыми" потрясающие люди.
Grand Duchess Maria Of Russia, 1906
Russian Sniper Roza Shanina
Lyudmila Pavlichenko. Soviet Sniper During World War II. Credited With 309 Kills, She Is Regarded As The Most Successful Female Sniper In History, 1940
Yuri Gagarin With His Matra Bonnet Djet Vs Coupe, 1965
The First Passengers Of The Moscow Metro, 1935
Gymnasium Girls, Imperial Russia, 1900-1917
The Four Romanov Daughters With Their Mother Tsarina Alexandra, 1913
Is it just me, but the second girl from the left looks like Sid from Ice Age :D
Worker And Supervisor, Car Factory, Moscow, 1954
Russian Family, Ekaterinburg Region, Siberia In The Late 19th Century
Looks like they were trying for a daughter... Reminds me of my grandparents' pictures
Yekaterina Ryabova, Russian Military Pilot, Heroine Of The Soviet Army, 1945
Most of their female pilots are better than their male counterparts even now.
Jose Raul Capablanca Vs Alexander Alekhine, 1913
Soldier Waves A Soviet Flag, Berlin, 1945
Lydia Litvyak During The World War I, 1941
102nd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment, 1943
Soviet Athletes In Moscow, 1937
A Man With A Group Of Russian Children, 1940
Nicholas II Of Russia In The Uniform Of The Life-guards 4th The Imperial Family’s Rifle Regiment, 1912
Russian Wrestler Karl Pospischil, 1912
Mikhail Bulgakov, 1928
Russian Soldiers In Berlin 1945
Must have been a victorious feeling! There's even a woman in the combat squad. So ahead of the Yanks
Anti Tank Artilery, 1940s
Romanov Sisters And Their Mother Tsarina Alexandra Working In A Military Hospital During Worl War I
Soviet Sniper Semyon Nomokonov With His Famous Smoking Pipe, 1942
Saint John Of Kronstadt
Maria Dolina, Hero Pilot Of The Soviet Union, 1945
Tank Driver Mikhail Smirnov, 1944
Reaper, 1914
Group Of The Sisters Of Charity In The Dining Room During Lunch, Rhe Herbovets Community, 1900s
Old cameras took way better pictures than modern digital ones. This picture almost looks 3 dimensional.
Berlin, 1945
Grigori Rasputin, 1904
Olga And Tatiana Romanov, 1900s
A Russian Man Stand By A Ford-a Made In The Ussr, 1930
Air Squadron Commander Of The 124th Fighter Regiment Alexander Pronin, 1942
Arseny Tarkovsky, 1907
Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky (25.06.1907 – 27.05.1989), russian poet This photo was taken by Gueorgui Pinkhassov in 1979
A Young Russian Bride, 1903
Russian Actor Nikolai Rybnikov In “Spring On Zarechnaya Street”, 1956
Anti Tank Artillery Soldiers, 1943
Soviet Air Force Officers Rufina Gasheva And Nataly Meklin, World War II
Those Polikarpovs Po-2s had a top speed just shy of 100 mph. They harrassed the German front lines in the night. They were known as the "Night Witches."
Traffic Controllers, Wolchow Front, 1943
La Comtesse Elisabeth Moussine-Pouchkine, 1903
Red Cross Personnel Attending To Wounded Soldiers On A Russian Battlefield, WWI
Easter At The Front, The Letter Symbolize The Fraze "Christ Is Risen", 1916
Grand Duchesses Olga And Tatiana Romanov In Livadia, Crimea, 1914
Friends, 1934
Russian Soldiers Pose Before The Attack, 1916
Soviet Sailors Raise The Ussr’s Naval Ensign Over Port-Artur, 1945
Captain Alexander G. Pronin And Major Sergei Stepanovich Bukhteyev Aboard A Plane, 1943
Soviet Car In The May Day Parade In Tel Aviv, 1947
Nikolay Felixovich Yusupov, Prince Nicholas, Eldest Son Of Princess Zenaida And Prince Feli
Oh, he is just gorgeous! He looks like a prince, jumped out a wonderfull fairytale <3javascript:void(0);
Berlin, 1945
Soviet Sniper Lyubov Makarova (left), Hero Of The Soviet Union Dmitry Nazarenko (right)
Lenin, 1900
Anti Tank Artilery Man, 1940s (left), Russian Sniper Nadiezhda Kolesnikova, 1943 (right)
The photo is not taken in 1940. The man's medals are for winning The Great Patriotic War (World War II in the USSR); in 1940 the war hadn't had started yet.
Natalia Meklin (kravtsova), Sofia Burzaeva, Polina Gelman, 1943
Soviet Soldiers Are Monitoring The Movement Of German Troops Near Sevastopol, Crimea, 1941
This looks like a scene from a movie... Don't remember which one though
German Embassy In St. Petersburg, 1913
Pilots And Air-gunners Of The 566th Assault Aviation Regiment, 1944
Captain Ivan Musienko During The World War I
The Last Projectile, 1914
Alexander Kerensky, 1917
This is awesome! I've been to Russia a couple of weeks ago! Such a beautiful country. ( post on boredpanda will come) It's great to see how these people lived! The colors make these pictures come to life!
Please visit again pal. We like when foreigners visit Russia
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at #13 1941 is world war II, not world war I. Great pictures by though.
The minute I saw this post I knew that there will be a bunch of ignorant brainwashed-by-Western-Media people commenting s**t on Russian history and people! What I learned from this world is that one can't change or open the minds of everyone. So best of luck living in your ignorance and jealousy. Stock up some Antidepressants, cz Russia aint going no where! Happy to see all the great readers commenting nice things here!
Yeah I know what "occupied" meant. That included my family's farms getting stripped and half of my relatives sent to Siberia. And the school down the road getting set on fire with kids inside. Shut your mouth, idiot, before you embarrass yourself any more.
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Original black-and-white, uncolorized pictures of that era (first half of the 20th century) made everyone look ugly, even hideous. The colorization has brought these people to life as they really were; many of them quite beautiful and handsome.
That was quite a gorgeous collection there. I remember seeing the movie Nicolas and Alexandra when I was a kid so seeing the family portrait at the top there, WOW.... what a gorgeous and regal family they were. I'm impressed that so many images were of female soldiers with impressive medals and mission stats mentioned. I'm not a war person but that impresses me that Women were celebrated as well as the Men. Looking at #7 and then at #22, I can't quite figure out which one was Alexandra. The material on Saint John's robe is beyond gorgeous!
Strikingly beautiful people...- I dont think I saw an unattractive person in all the photos ??
Wonderful photographs. People are people the world over if there were no by-lines introducing them as Russians, who would know? Surprised at women snipers though.
Very nice gallery. Would love to see more lists like this from all over the world featuring countries' histories.
What did we learn from all of this? Nothing. We are now even worse than they were during the war. We will never learn.
So much beauty, we know who the ugly ones were -- The Czar and his beautiful family there is not enough -- Justice, oh please, we need justice -- They, the killers of innocence still reign...
My point is every country has "nightmares" in its history. The point of this post was to show interesting and unique side of Russia
Really like to see colorized pictures of that whats left of soviet army after 1920's war with Poland or maybe pictures of them after war with Finland. Ofcourse Russia and Soviet Russia was never agressive, they only help other nations... with guns, on other nations land, shooting to other nations citizens, and rape other nations women. No hard feelings Ruskie, you are mostly good people (like any other nation) but yours goverment was and is fckd up.
Just like USA "help" other nations before and now (insert eye roll)
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mhm... yes, fascinating... how easy it is to show the beauty and forget the nightmare that hides behind it... Evidence from the Soviet archives contains official records of the execution of approximately 800,000 prisoners under Stalin for either political or criminal offenses, around 1.7 million deaths in the Gulags and some 390,000 deaths during kulak forced resettlement – for a total of about 3 million officially recorded victims in these categories. Several scholars, among them Stalin biographer Simon Sebag Montefiore, former Politburo member Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev and the director of Yale's "Annals of Communism" series Jonathan Brent, put the death toll at about 20 million. Robert Conquest, in the latest revision (2007) of his book The Great Terror, estimates that while exact numbers will never be certain, the communist leaders of the USSR were responsible for no fewer than 15 million deaths. source: https://goo.gl/I8287s
Yeah ah ha, and now let's count how many people Americans killed and tortured, including Indians (aka native Americans), African American
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У современных русских только одна причина для гордости и осталась - воспоминания.
What do you know about it, to judge? Times were such. Without the hard decisions, the country would not be what it has become, it would be carried off in pieces. In a very short period of time to recover from the complete ruin, and the people worshiped the same Stalin. Though he was cruel but without this in any way then.
Load More Replies... This is awesome! I've been to Russia a couple of weeks ago! Such a beautiful country. ( post on boredpanda will come) It's great to see how these people lived! The colors make these pictures come to life!
Please visit again pal. We like when foreigners visit Russia
Load More Replies... at #13 1941 is world war II, not world war I. Great pictures by though.
The minute I saw this post I knew that there will be a bunch of ignorant brainwashed-by-Western-Media people commenting s**t on Russian history and people! What I learned from this world is that one can't change or open the minds of everyone. So best of luck living in your ignorance and jealousy. Stock up some Antidepressants, cz Russia aint going no where! Happy to see all the great readers commenting nice things here!
Yeah I know what "occupied" meant. That included my family's farms getting stripped and half of my relatives sent to Siberia. And the school down the road getting set on fire with kids inside. Shut your mouth, idiot, before you embarrass yourself any more.
Load More Replies... Original black-and-white, uncolorized pictures of that era (first half of the 20th century) made everyone look ugly, even hideous. The colorization has brought these people to life as they really were; many of them quite beautiful and handsome.
That was quite a gorgeous collection there. I remember seeing the movie Nicolas and Alexandra when I was a kid so seeing the family portrait at the top there, WOW.... what a gorgeous and regal family they were. I'm impressed that so many images were of female soldiers with impressive medals and mission stats mentioned. I'm not a war person but that impresses me that Women were celebrated as well as the Men. Looking at #7 and then at #22, I can't quite figure out which one was Alexandra. The material on Saint John's robe is beyond gorgeous!
Strikingly beautiful people...- I dont think I saw an unattractive person in all the photos ??
Wonderful photographs. People are people the world over if there were no by-lines introducing them as Russians, who would know? Surprised at women snipers though.
Very nice gallery. Would love to see more lists like this from all over the world featuring countries' histories.
What did we learn from all of this? Nothing. We are now even worse than they were during the war. We will never learn.
So much beauty, we know who the ugly ones were -- The Czar and his beautiful family there is not enough -- Justice, oh please, we need justice -- They, the killers of innocence still reign...
My point is every country has "nightmares" in its history. The point of this post was to show interesting and unique side of Russia
Really like to see colorized pictures of that whats left of soviet army after 1920's war with Poland or maybe pictures of them after war with Finland. Ofcourse Russia and Soviet Russia was never agressive, they only help other nations... with guns, on other nations land, shooting to other nations citizens, and rape other nations women. No hard feelings Ruskie, you are mostly good people (like any other nation) but yours goverment was and is fckd up.
Just like USA "help" other nations before and now (insert eye roll)
Load More Replies... mhm... yes, fascinating... how easy it is to show the beauty and forget the nightmare that hides behind it... Evidence from the Soviet archives contains official records of the execution of approximately 800,000 prisoners under Stalin for either political or criminal offenses, around 1.7 million deaths in the Gulags and some 390,000 deaths during kulak forced resettlement – for a total of about 3 million officially recorded victims in these categories. Several scholars, among them Stalin biographer Simon Sebag Montefiore, former Politburo member Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev and the director of Yale's "Annals of Communism" series Jonathan Brent, put the death toll at about 20 million. Robert Conquest, in the latest revision (2007) of his book The Great Terror, estimates that while exact numbers will never be certain, the communist leaders of the USSR were responsible for no fewer than 15 million deaths. source: https://goo.gl/I8287s
Yeah ah ha, and now let's count how many people Americans killed and tortured, including Indians (aka native Americans), African American
Load More Replies... У современных русских только одна причина для гордости и осталась - воспоминания.
What do you know about it, to judge? Times were such. Without the hard decisions, the country would not be what it has become, it would be carried off in pieces. In a very short period of time to recover from the complete ruin, and the people worshiped the same Stalin. Though he was cruel but without this in any way then.
Load More Replies...