This striking photograph, taken from Tumanovsk Hill, shows a village in the Iset River valley near Shadrinsk. Of special interest is a partially hidden brick building, probably used as a store. The structure is crowned with an elaborate cornice, and on the left is a courtyard gate decorated with cupolas. On the right is another courtyard gate for the adjacent log house, next to which another log house is under construction. A wattle fence surrounds the dilapidated log house and barn in the foreground. In the background is a partial view of Shadrinsk with the prominent Church of Saint Nicholas, built in 1793–1802 and expanded in the 1840s. The image is by Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944), who used a special color photography process to create a visual record of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. Some of Prokudin-Gorskii’s photographs date from about 1905, but the bulk of his work is from between 1909 and 1915, when, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the Ministry of Transportation, he undertook extended trips through many different parts of the empire. In 1912 Prokudin-Gorskii participated in an expedition along the Kama-Tobol Waterway, during which he did extensive photography in the area around Shadrinsk, located on the main rail line to Kurgan, southeast of Ekaterinburg.