The Revolution will be colorised: Historic photos of Russian taken by a young Yale graduate uncovered

Hundreds of historic photographs documenting a young Yale graduate's travel to Russia during the start of the Russian Revolution have been discovered a near century later by his granddaughter after tucked away in his California home.



Opening an old metal chest after her grandfather's passing, more than 500 hand-painted glass slides have been found capturing a remarkable 1917 excursion that put him face-to-face with heavy-coated soldiers, machine guns, bunkers and gas masks.



Seen today fully restored after a near century of darkness, the slides were purchased in 2012 by Southern California camera and photo collector Anton Orlov after experiencing the extraordinary find first hand.

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Everyday life: A train is seen sometime in either late 1917 or early 1918 in Russia as photographed by John Wells Rahill, a then-recent Yale graduate and pastor

Russian firearms: In one of more than 500 glass slides discovered from the early 1900s, a Russian machine gunner poses alongside another soldier while holding his weapon before a snow-covered bunker

Banded together: A group of Cossack soldiers pose for Mr Rahill's Kodak camera's lens

'...I was asked to come by a Northern California home to help translate and identify some mystery images,’ he writes on his photography blog of his first discovery of the photos in 2005.



‘I love old photos, so I was eager to help. All I knew when I was on my way up there was that they were from Russia and really old,' he recalled.



Opening up a number of wooden storage boxes presented to him, he was amazed by the hundreds of delicate glass slides, each containing tiny people, homes, villages and obvious signs of war.

He purchased them all several years later, setting out to fully restore all that he could.

Inquiring of the photographer, the owner took Mr Orlov back in time to the fall of 1917 when her grandfather, John Wells Rahill, a recent Yale graduate and pastor, set out from the U.S. for Russia.



Inspired by news of the first Russian revolution, a historic monument he wanted to experience and capture for himself, he grabbed his Kodak camera and joined the YMCA’s War Works Division, helping armies on both sides where he could.

Ancient citadel : The Pskov Kremlin is seen photographed, while its colour later hand painted like the rest of the hundreds of glass Magic Lantern slides

Shooting: A group of Russian soldiers are seen shooting at what is only described with the photograph's notes as a suspicious house

Modern life: Men are seen warmly dressed outside a train station, a few perhaps curiously watching the camera

In the process he captured the people's everyday lives, from the market place, to the bustling streets, to his own people working alongside him at the YMCA.



He even found time to travel to China and Japan after purchasing a number of photographs of the far East - prompting him to vow to similarly capture them on his own camera.



After his return to the U.S. in the spring of 1918, he converted many of his best pictures to Magic Lantern Slides as a means to share his experience with others, his granddaughter said.



He gave lectures on his experience with the YMCA while also working as a pastor, but by the 1920s, those who had worked in Russia during the First World War found themselves harmfully labelled as 'socialist sympathizers' in the U.S., she said.



Front lines: Soldiers on the front lines are seen in a bunker while wearing gas masks over their face

Market: Russian women are photographed posing with strings of onions they hope to sell in a marketplace

Mission: One of the so-called Soldiers House Mr Rahill helped create in Valk is pictured with all of its men standing proudly outside

The photographer himself: Mr Rahill is seen here in this photo taken in Russia where he stands among three village children

It’s believed result led to his pictures placed in his home's storage, locked away until his granddaughter's startling discovery.



'Those photos also have been unseen by the world because in mid 1920s they were put into a basement for storage and were only discovered 85 years later,’ Mr Orlov, who’s originally from Russia himself said.



After a grueling and expensive process of preserving all 500-plus photos, Mr Orlov is now hoping to recreate Mr Rahill’s journey himself come 2017.



As an avid collector, photographer and developer who has transformed an old school bus into a traveling photo studio and darkroom, Mr Orlov’s so-called Photo Palace Bus - aiming ‘propagation of knowledge related to historic photographic techniques through cross-country art exhibits, lectures and demonstrations’ - is helping to showcase the hundreds of images.

Helpers: These are just some of the YMCA members who joined Mr Rahill's efforts in Russia during the revolution

Workplace: Photographed in Russia is the inside of one of the YMCA Soldiers Club interiors by Mr Rahill

Damage: A badly damaged building in Russia is seen on a street corner where people are captured otherwise going about their daily lives

It comes in addition to a second collection of WWI photos he recently discovered only just this year in a camera hidden in a Los Angeles antique store that documents parts of war-torn France.



If he is able to complete his financial goal, accepting donations and selling copies of his work, his Russian journey will take place exactly 100 years after Mr Rahill’s.



'I hope beyond hope that I can find a private or corporate sponsor to fund the re-photographing journey in the near future,' he tells the MailOnline.



'I'm really hopeful that the Russian set will finally get the attention it so rightly deserves. Also, me being from Russia and not having been back there since I moved to U.S. in ‘94, I am very much looking forward to the re-photographing trip,’ he says.

Moving East: An Asian man is photographed carrying two water barrels on street

Great Wall: Four YMCA members stand before the mighty Great Wall of China

Children: Two boys are photographed partially hiding inside a large urn

V IDEO Take a look over the stunning collectio n for yourself ...



