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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. A horizontal sepia-toned photograph from the late nineteenth century depicts a group of thirteen people standing in a snowy field. The individuals are arranged in a wide, loose line across the center of the frame, dressed in heavy winter clothing including coats, hats, and mittens. Several people in the group hold tall, slender wooden poles or skis upright. In the center of the group, a small wooden sled rests on the snow. The background consists of a dense forest of thin, leafless trees under a pale, overcast sky. The foreground is a flat, expansive surface of white snow. Below the original photograph, a horizontal color calibration target featuring various colored squares and a grayscale step wedge is visible, included for archival digitization. Image description generated by AI (Gemini 3.0 Fast) and reviewed, January 2026 .
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