Russia's First Photojournalist

Maxim Dmitriev, 1890s

A well-dressed man with a flowing beard is stepping cautiously as he makes his way up a dusty hill. Carefully guiding a small cart loaded with lacquered wooden boxes, he tries not to rattle his load. The man strains as he pushes his cart to the summit, where he pauses to take in the view. Below, rushing between steep banks and sandy shoals, cutting a path through gullies and forested slopes, Russia’s mighty Volga stretches from one horizon to the other.

Old Believers in the village of Kuznetsovo, Semyonovsky uyezd, late 1890s.(Photo courtesy of Russian Museum of Photography, Nizhny Novgorod)