Image: Khudaibergen Divanov (Uzbek, 1879-1938). Khivan Hunt. Circa 1910. Salted paper print. Getty Research Institute, 2022.R.22.
A small number of rare photographs preserved at the GRI represent Central Asia. Among these are exceptional early views of Samarkand monuments documented in the 1890s, and the first Uzbek photographer’s prints showing people and views of Khiva at the turn of the 20th century.
Several rare collections document the Transcaspian Railway, built by the Russian army between 1866 and 1888, and traveled in 1890 by French photographer Paul Nadar during a three-month journey through present-day Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Nadar's images capture everyday scenes of Samarkand, Tashkent, Bukhara, Mary (near the ancient site of Merv), and the Murghab steppe.
Complementing Nadar’s album is a pair of albums and a travel diary compiled by Edmond and Marie Ternynck, a couple from Roubaix, France, active in the textile industry. The travel narrative (visual and textual) includes more well-traveled sites, such as Istanbul, alongside rarely documented regions further east with a particular focus on different stops along the journey to the Caspian Sea and along the Transcaspian Railway. Well-known views of Istanbul (Constantinople) and Turkey are interspersed with images from Iran, Turkistan, Uzbekistan, and Russia that capture people they encountered, such as the bey of Chardzhou (Türkmenabat); and General Mikhail Annenkov, the Russian engineer in charge of the railroad construction.
Two portfolios by early Russian photographers document Samarkand, Uzbekistan, around the turn of the century: one by photographer G. A. Pankrat'ev depicts Samarkand between 1894-97 and documents the ruinous state of the Timurid monuments prior to the restoration that began under the Russian Imperial Archaeological Commission in 1899. A second album from around 1900 by G. P. Arshaulov pictures key Timurid monuments that records damage from the 1897 earthquake.
Preserved at the GRI are 18 salted paper prints by Khudaibergen Divanov, the earliest Uzbek photographer. 15 of them were made in the first decades of the 20th century, prior to the fall of the Khanate of Khiva. Besides views of Khiva, the capital of the Khanate of Khiva, there are views of local people in the course of trade and industry, and popular entertainments. Three later photographs were taken after the fall of the Khanate of Khiva in 1920. One image likely depicts the First All-Khorezm Kurultai Assembly of People's Representatives held on 30 April 1920, which proclaimed the end of the Khivan Khanate and the formation of the Khorezm People's Soviet Republic.
A more modern record of Central Asia is found in the diary of British traveler, Sir Peter Christopher Allen, who visited Samarkand, Uzbekistan, the Khanate of Bukhara, and Russia in spring of 1960.
Early Central Asia photographs are complemented by illustrated travel guides, among which are several by Mikhail Masson, who founded the Central Asian School of Archaeology. Trained as an engineer in Petrograd, Masson returned to his hometown Samarkand to work on preserving the historic landmarks of the ancient city.
Mavzoleĭ Gur-Ėmir, usypalʹnit︠s︡a Timuridov (Mausoleum of Gur-Ėmir, tomb of the Timurids) by M.E. Masson, 1926.
Rigistan i ego medrese (Registan and its Madrasah) by M.E. Masson, 1926 and 1929.
Sobornai︠a︡ mechetʹ Timura, izvestnai︠a︡ pod imenem Mecheti Bibi-Khanym (The Cathedral Mosque of Timur, known as the Bibi-Khanum Mosque) by M.E. Masson, 1929.
Pami︠a︡tniki drevnosteĭ Samarkanda (Monuments of Antiquity of Samarkand) by V. Vi︠a︡tkin, 1929.