Upper-class girls being trained to dance the mazurka in St. Petersburg before 1917.
Monks from the Konevsky Monastery pose on the stones of Lake Ladoga, just north of St. Petersburg, around 1900.
An ice-skater waits for the starting call in a race in St. Petersburg in the early 1900s.
This is the work of Karl Bulla, Russia’s first “accredited” photojournalist.
Bulla (pictured late in his career) was born in 1855 in today’s Glubczyce, southern Poland. At the time the town was in Prussia -- a German-speaking nation.
Under circumstances lost to history, Bulla made his way to St. Petersburg at the age of 11. It was relatively common then for small-town boys to head for the bright lights of the nearest city for apprenticeships, but it’s unknown why Bulla set his sights on the distant Russian capital.
St. Petersburg’s main street, Nevsky Prospekt, on a busy morning in the early 1900s as photographed by Karl Bulla.
The German-speaking migrant boy began his career running errands for a St. Petersburg photo-accessory company. Soon Bulla had mastered the Russian language and the burgeoning craft of photography. In 1875, the self-taught photographer opened his own studio.
Mathilde Kschessinska, a prima ballerina and one-time lover of Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia.
An early advertisement for his services declared Bulla, “shoots whatever is necessary, everywhere and anywhere, undeterred by outdoor or indoor location -- during the day or any kind of nighttime with artificial lighting.”
A demonstration of a “ski sail” on the frozen Neva River around 1910.
In 1886, Bulla -- already noted for his talent and intense work ethic -- received a license from the governor of St. Petersburg to “create photographic scenes of the capital and its vicinity, on the condition that no impediment is caused to the public and carriages in the course of the work.”
A group of horses being rescued after a bridge collapsed into the icy water of a St. Petersburg canal.
With his permit allowing him to work largely unimpeded by the authorities, Bulla became Russia’s first accredited photojournalist.
A man who sells chilled kvass -- a sweet, beer-like drink made from fermented black bread -- that is popular during Russian summers.
Bulla made the most of his “accreditation,” which allowed him access to high society, as well as the destitute and sometimes violent world of Russia’s underclasses.
A soup kitchen for St. Petersburg’s poor photographed in 1911.
Much of Russia’s population at the turn of the century was growing restless for political change.
A group of men described in the original caption as “hooligans” loitering on a street in St. Petersburg around 1910. At least one of the men (in the center) is sporting a black eye.
The head priest of a monastery south of St. Petersburg in 1913.
The unusually crisp images Bulla created were the result of the backpack-sized cameras he used. Unlike the film and digital sensors of today that are measured in millimeters, Bulla’s images were shot on glass plates measuring several inches across.
Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, photographed on his estate in the countryside east of Moscow in 1908, on the great author’s 80th birthday.
Bulla (left) with Tolstoy during the 1908 photo session.
One of the only existing descriptions of the photographer describes him only as “Of somewhat short stature, thin, stooping, gray-haired, quiet.”
The daughters of Russia’s last tsar pose for Bulla in 1914.
After Bulla received permission to take photographs “in the presence of his majesty the tsar,” Bulla’s career was at its peak. He was a wealthy man with endless artistic opportunities. But around 1917 he abruptly left Russia to live on Estonia’s Saaremaa Island with his newly married Estonian wife.
Wrestler Karl Pospischil posing in Bulla’s studio.
It’s unclear why the famous photographer abruptly packed up his life to head for an obscure island on the Baltic Sea. Some historians have speculated that the increasing hostility towards Germany amid World War I was wearing on the native German speaker. Another theory, that Bulla may have led a secret life in St. Petersburg’s gay scene, has been hinted at by Western media.
But a book published by a Russian historical organization claims Bulla left Russia with the intention of returning, but events in Russia made that virtually impossible.
A photo made by Karl Bulla’s son, Viktor, moments after a crowd of demonstrators were machine-gunned amid mass unrest in St. Petersburg in the summer of 1917. The photo was shot from a rooftop near Karl Bulla’s photo studio.
Whatever the reason for his departure, Bulla’s timing was fortuitous. After the 1917 revolution the tsar was overthrown, the country’s capital city was thrown into months of chaos, and a ruthless new brand of rulers -- the communists -- seized power. Bulla’s links to high society as well as his personal wealth would have made him an obvious target in the new Russia.
Bulla died in effective exile on Saaremaa in 1929.
A photo by Karl Bulla’s son Viktor of a communist youth group in training in 1937.
Bulla’s sons -- Aleksandr and Viktor -- both skilled photographers in their own right, documented the rise of revolutionary socialism in their country but soon fell under suspicion for their upper-class links and Germanic background. Shortly before World War II broke out, Viktor was executed by the communist authorities while Aleksandr was sent to a labor camp and died soon after his return.
This memorial to Karl Bulla stands today on a side street off Nevsky Prospekt, near where Bulla’s photography studio was. On Saaremaa, one of Bulla’s cameras is displayed in an island museum.