3-007-143 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Mullahs in mosque, Azizia, Batum, between 1905 and 1915. In the middle of the 19th century, the Turkish Sultan Abdullah Azizie built the Aziz (or Aziziye, Azizie) Mosque in Batumi as a conspicuous symbol of Adjara region's status as part of the Ottoman Empire. Russian chemist and photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky (1863-1944) was a pioneer in colour photography which he used to document early 20th-century Russia and her empire, including the vanishing way of life of tribal peoples along the Silk Route in Central Asia. In a railway-carriage darkroom provided by Czar Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorsky used the three-colour photography process to record traditional costumes and occupations, churches and mosques - many now Unesco World Heritage sites - as well as modernisation in agriculture, industry and transport.