Along the Banks of the Volga River

Masterpieces of the Russian photography from the second half of the 19th century
in the collection of the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg.

Nevertheless, the industrial conquest of the Volga was not the only subject of the Russian photography in the latter half of the 19th century. There were also images that glorified the River. Some of them depicted how it was born, from the interior of the earth, as a small spring which was to grow into a powerful bed of the Great River. The artist Yevgeny Vishnyakov (1841 - 1916) made a collection of images called The Headwaters of the Volga.

Being an active member of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society, he also gave a detailed description of his "photographic excursion" in the book of the same name with the subtitle Sketches in Pen and Photographs. The collection by Vishnyakov includes landscape and ethnographical photographs. The pictures manage to convey the harmony of the Volga nature; some images are full of particular quiet and eternal calm, which are not shattered by local peasants who live their patriarchal life and make their living by fishing.

Evgeny Vishnyakov. The Chapel over the Spring Known as the Source of the Volga. 1892	Evgeny Vishnyakov. The First High Bank of the Volga. 1892
Evgeny Vishnyakov. The Spring Flood of the Volga over the Meadows of the Village of Alekseevka. 1892	Evgeny Vishnyakov. Fish Garth where the Volga Flows into the Lake of Sterzh. 1892
Evgeny Vishnyakov. The Peno Lakeshore near the Village of Grishino. 1892