Chris Says: Check out the Prokudin-Gorskii Collection

If you have been following our blog you are probably aware I am working on a masters in library science.  This semester I am taking a digital libraries course and have been introduced to the Prokudin-Gorskii digital photograph collection maintained by the Library of Congress.  This collection is unique for two reasons.  First, the photographer traveled the vast expanse of the Russian empire and photographing people, landscapes, architecture, and just about everything else.  Second, these photos were taken prior to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, before Russia was ravaged by two wars, and the photos are in color.  Here are some of my favorites from the collection.  I have not been through all of the collection because there are over two thousand photos in the collection, all of which are made available online through the Library of Congress.

Click here to view the entire collection 
Click here for the collection's mainpage

Here are some photos from the collection.

Russian Peasant Girls

Author Leo Tolstoy

Turkmen Camel Driver

The Emir of Bukhara

What $2600 worth of medicine looks like

We have been trying for a couple of years to have a baby.  We have been with a fertility doctor for about a year, and nothing has worked.  The doctor has told us that my time is ticking a little faster than most women's time ticks.  So, my wonderful parents said that they would help pay for us to do in vitro fertilization.  We are paying for the medicine, and they are paying for the actual procedure.  Today, we got our IVF medicine in the mail!  Hooray!  Here is a video of me opening it: