Guide to the Siberia Photograph Album

Title: Siberia Photograph Album

Date (inclusive): ca. 1895

Collection number: Bernath Mss 150

Extent: .4 linear feet (1 document box)

Repository: University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Department of Special Collections

Physical location: Del Sur

Language of Material: Collection materials in English

None.

Copyright has not been assigned to the Department of Special Collections, UCSB. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Department of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which also must be obtained.

Siberia Photograph Album. Bernath Mss 150. Department of Special Collections, Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Purchase, 2005.

The album (stamped "Sibirien," Siberia in German, on the cover) contains 50 b/w photographs of people and places in Siberia. Many appear to be of the port city of Vladivostok, along with Irkutsk the most important trade and commercial center in turn of the century Siberia. Founded in 1860, Vladivostok's importance to Tsarist Russia was greatly enhanced by the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway begun in 1891 and completed in 1905. Some of the scenes in the album suggest the commercial growth and activity of this period. There are scenes of various ships (ranging from large coal burning ships to a smaller harbor vessel with the name "Pavel" on its side) as well as views of the city and street scenes showing various commercial enterprises (for example, the Kinst and Albers Trading House) some with their or their proprietors' names on signs (in Russian) and an Orthodox Church compound. There are shots of inhabitants and workers (including some Chinese workers in Qing era dress) engaged in various activities including photographs of a group of men on bicycles and and what appears to be a group of young women leaving a convent school.