Incredible colorized photos show Russia before the Communist revolution

World War I drastically changed the face of Europe and set the stage of the even more staggering changes wrought by World War II.

Before the start of World War I, just over a hundred years ago in 1914, European empires still controlled vast swathes of territory, Communist revolutions had yet to spread across the globe, and the Russian Empire controlled Finland, the Baltics, Ukraine, and large portions of Poland.

The following photos, from the Prokudin-Gorskii Collection in the Library of Congress, offers an amazing glimpse into pre-Communist revolution Russia. The photos were taken throughout the Russian Empire between 1905 and 1915 and have been colorized to to give a unique view of what life was like during the last days of the empire.