English Russia is an “entertaiment blog devoted to the events happening in Russian speaking countries.” Quite often fun but not, you would have thought, likely to feature much of agrobiodiversity interest. And you’d be right. For 99% of the time at any rate. Because there was a post a few days ago with truly amazing colour photographs of the Russian Empire from a hundred years ago, and many show farming products and activities. They’re by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, according to one of the comments, and he had a Library of Congress exhibition devoted to him in 2003, whose website is where it seems most of the images in the English Russia post originated. Well worth exploring. I wonder if some of these images could be used to compare with the present. For example, are these melons still to be found in Samarkand?
