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Description
The Institute for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies received a gift of these photographs from Vera and Robert Eby. The photos were donated to the Institute in the name of their son, James Peter Eby, who at the time of the donation was an undergraduate majoring in Russian History at Berkeley. James Peter Eby is a descendent of the Kropotkin family whose other descendents in the United States include Elizabeth Sidorov (nee Princess Elizabeth Kropotkin), Alex Alden, Vera Sidorov Eby, and Christopher Eby. This collection of photographs has been in the possession of the Eby family for some time. They are housed in the offices of the Institute for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies and in the History Department of UC Berkeley. Little is known about the circumstances under which these photographs were taken, however the Eby family has verified that the photographs date from the late nineteenth century. This horizontal, sepia-toned photograph from the late nineteenth century captures a rural landscape featuring a wooden church and a small settlement at the base of a large, forested mountain. In the center foreground, a man in dark trousers and a light-colored jacket walks across an open, grassy field toward the viewer, with a small dog or animal following closely behind him. To the right, a multi-story wooden building with a distinctive pointed steeple and a cross on top sits behind a low wooden fence. On the left side of the field, a small, circular structure with a conical roof, resembling a hut or tent, is visible near some equipment or debris. The background is dominated by the steep, sloping side of a mountain covered in dense trees and foliage under a pale, flat sky. A vertical color calibration strip and a grayscale step wedge are positioned along the bottom edge of the photograph's border. Image description generated by AI (Gemini 3.0 Fast) and reviewed, January 2026 .
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