The collection includes photographs illustrating the immense variety of peoples and types that the empire contained, showing St. Petersburg as a city designed to display an Emperor in the most resplendent fashion, and revealing Moscow as a city with an unshakable hold on the minds of the Russian people. There are photographs of nobles, of peasants, and the Russian landscape; pictures of the Imperial Army and its campaigns. The story is brought to a close with photographs taken during the Revolution and the civil war which marked the end of Imperial Russia. The book faithfully reflects some of the many facets of the unique society of Imperial Russia under its last Tsars, and as such constitutes a volume of immense historical interest.