Here we have taken two photographs and combined them into one, because - well, they belong together. These are pictures of a Jewish bride and groom from Turkestan, taken in 1871 and published in 1872. They are both very young looking, and neither seems very happy, whether about the wedding or about having their pictures taken we can only guess. The parents likely arranged the wedding, so it may be a bit of both. The bride’s name was Khanna, and the groom Mulla Borukh.

The photographer was N. V. Bogaevskii, a Russian officer with the Office for Land Surveys. He was part of a group of men selected by Adjutant-General K.P. von Kaufman, who was Governor-General of Turkestan at that time, to document the history and customs of the region. The results of their effort were published in a photo-album book, which brought awareness of this remote region to the outside world for the first time.