
With their grainy print and faded edges, it may look like these images were edited using filters on Instagram, but in fact they were captured almost 100 years ago using a specially built camera with three lenses.

They were the brainchild of Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, a Russian chemist and pioneer of colour photography, who took them between 1909 and 1915 just as Russia headed into the First World War and on the eve of the revolution which saw the monarchy expelled and ushered in communism.

Acting on commission from Tsar Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorsky was given a train with a special darkroom built into it for developing his pictures, and was allowed to travel the length of Russia with an access-all-areas pass in order to capture the lives of its citizens.

Scroll down for video

#Nofilter: While this picture may look like it was edited on Instagram in fact it was captured in 1911 by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, a pioneer of colour photographs, and shows Alim Khan, the Emir of Bukhara

Pioneer: Equipped with a camera he designed himself and a train with a darkroom built into it, Prokudin-Gorsky travelled across Russia taking images. Pictured is a Muslim war veteran, complete with traditional uniform and dagger, in Dagestan, south west Russia, in 1904

Ancient selfie: Prokudin-Gorsky (pictured in this self-portrait in 1912) created his pictures by taking the same image three times using red, green and blue filters, then used a special projector to combine them, producing the colour photograph

Valuable: In total Prokudin-Gorsky took more than 2,000 images, capturing life in Russia before the First World War and subsequent revolution which saw the royal family deposed and communism ushered in (pictured, a woman in traditional formal dress)

Hard at work: While some of the images captured well-known landmarks or wealthy people, Prokudin-Gorsky also went about documenting the lives of ordinary citizens, including this group of Greek workers harvesting tea

New frontier: While Azerbaijan is now its own country, at the time this picture was taken between 1905 and 1915 it was being settled by Russian peasants from the Molokan Christian minority. This family have just moved to the Mugan steppe, a vast agricultural region

While these days creating a picture only requires the press of a smartphone button, Prokudin-Gorsky's technique required taking the same picture three times using a camera with three lenses.

It is not known exactly what Prokudin-Gorsky's camera looked like because - somewhat ironically - no drawings or pictures of it survive, but it may have involved three lenses stacked one on top of another, or a single lens with changeable filters.

The three filters were tinted red, green and blue, and the images were captured on a long glass plate. To display the picture, the plate was inserted into a projector which combined the images, producing the colour photograph.

While some of the pictures document grand cathedrals and royal figures, most of the collection was devoted to documenting the lives of ordinary Russians as they went about their lives, working in factories or manning street stalls.

Open for business: A Muslim fabric-seller displays stacks of silk, cotton, wool and carpets on his stall in Samarkand, in modern-day Uzbekistan. Just out of shot, above the shack, hangs a framed picture of the Koran

Doing business: In this picture a melon vendor displays his wares in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, which was part of the Russian empire until breaking ties with the Soviet Union in 1991

Special delivery: A merchant wearing traditional central Asian dress loads up a camel with sacks, likely containing grain or cotton

Back to basics: Men are pictured travelling on the handcar railway near Petrozavodsk on the Murmansk railway in 1915. During the First World War the tracks became a vital supply route for troops, arms and heavy artillery brought in from the coast

Relaxing: A man in Middle-eastern dress smokes a hookah pipe while crouching next to a wall in this image taken between 1905 and 1915

Hard labour: In this image, which was taken in colour but is now faded, men work on casts for small artistic figures made at the Kasli Iron Works, located in the Ural Mountains in central Russia

Rough justice: Prisoners crowd the bars of this traditional central Asian prison, known as a Zindan. The jails typically consisted of little more than a hole dug underground with heavy metal bars placed across the entrance to hold people inside

Prokudin-Gorsky was born in Murom, several hundred miles east of Moscow, in 1863 was educated as a chemist, studying with renowned scientists in St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Paris.

Growing up with a passion for photography, he developed his technique for producing colour images, and then conceived of his grand project of photographing the nation to educate children on the vast and diverse history, culture, and modernization of the Russian empire.

Using his glass plates and projector, he gave illusrtated lectures on his work throughout the country. However, the Russian revolution in 1917 saw the Tsarist regime which funded his work deposed, and in 1918 he left his homeland to settle in Paris, where he died in 1944.

The Prokudin-Gorsky Collection features 2,607 images and were purchased by the Library of Congress from his sons in 1948. Librarians paid a reported $5000 - the equivalent of almost $50,000 (£32k) today - for the pictures.

Changing times: When Prokudin-Gorsky took this image of the Nilova Monastery in 1910, it was still being used for religious services, but in 1927 it was stripped from the church and used as a concentration camp and orphanage. It was returned to the church in 1990

Rural life: This rather gloomy-looking shot shows the remote farming village of Kolchedan in Ural Mountains, taken in 1912

Turning back time: This pictures shows the city of Tbilisi, then part of the Russian empire, but now the captial of Gerogia. It has grown considerably since this image was taken in the early 1900s, and is now home to 1.5million people

Pictured in peace: The Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Mozhaisk as it stood in 1911, before Nazi attacks on the area during the Second World War detroyed the central dome. Further damage was done during the Soviet era, when it was used as a factory

Before industry: While the modern-day image of Russia is of a grinding industrial machine, it was a largely rural nation when this was taken in 1912. Here mills are seen in a farmer's field in the tiny village of Yalutorovsk, central Russia

Rise of the machines: As Russia moved into the 20th century factories such as this became increasingly common. Here cotton is milled into thread in Bayramaly, in modern-day Turkmenistan