A thing of beauty: incredibly rare footage of Moscow in 1896.

[Ron Obvious]

Digitally slowed down and processed. It's amazing how it humanises them in a way the jerky original film from that era doesn't. It feels like time travel....

Link to tweet

[MFM008]

1. Another world

.....

[sarge43]

2. Fascinating.

Interesting how few women there were. I saw four, maybe five and no children.

I've seen films from around the same time of San Francisco, NYC and London. At least a third to half of people were women and lots of children.

[LeftInTX]

6. It could be the location in the city

Old pictures of Wall Street don't show women and children.

It appears many of the men have uniforms and the building on the left appears to have a bunch of flags on top...like some type of business or diplomatic district...

[sarge43]

8. Good point

Yes, did seem like a lot of uniforms

[smirkymonkey]

10. I noticed the same thing.

I wonder if women mostly stayed in the home during those times.

[sarge43]

11. I think LeftInTX called it

A part of the city where women didn't frequent - financial or government/military.

If the scene were in the market or shop districts, probably would have seen more.

[First Speaker]

3. I wonder what happened to those people a generation later...

...would a single one of them have believed it, if you went back and told them what Russia's 20th century history would be...?

[sinkingfeeling]

4. I have some photos of St. Petersburg from the 1950s

Russia was interesting.

[mia]

5. Reminds me of The Postman

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Wow, incredible footage! I've been to Moscow

Like most Russian cities, it's an amazing mix of modern and older than anything in this country. The Kremlin - which is really a fort - was built by Italian artisans from 1485 to 1495.

[Fla Dem]

9. This was during the reign of the last Tsar of Russia Nicholas II.

Abdicated throne March 1917, executed by Bolsheviks July 1917.

The military style hat must have been the fad of the day.

Always interesting to see video of days long past.

[Xolodno]

12. Obviously a more well to do portion of the city.

Russia was two world back then, the have's and have not's.

[MortSahlFan]

13. Thanks!

Thanks for the upload! There is some wonderful video out there of all parts of the world.. I love to get a random glimpse of everyday life as opposed to documentaries.

[Ron Obvious]

14. I just noticed that you get sound if you play it a second time...

Maybe it's something unusual about my setup but I only get sound on the second playing. Not original sound, I'm certain, but it does add something to the experience.

As I said in the OP, this feels as close as I'm going to get to time travel.

[lindysalsagal]

15. Far better dressed and fed than I would have expected. Incredible! Sound! Wow!