This photograph shows the gently rolling landscape leading up to the Chapan-Ata mazar (mausoleum), located several kilometers northeast of Samarkand (present-day Uzbekistan). The mausoleum takes its name from the summit on which it is located (chapan is a local word for shepherd). Its archaic centralized form, resembling similar structures from the 15th century, has suffered damage over the centuries. The structure, built of adobe brick, is braced by several simple buttresses. The high drum supporting the dome has been coated with stucco. A solitary path ascends the steep slopes leading to the shrine. Visible throughout the slopes are grazing tracks made by sheep, and some areas have been tilled. The image is by Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944), who used a special color photography process to create a visual record of the Russian Empire in the early 20th century. Some of Prokudin-Gorskii’s photographs date from about 1905, but the bulk of his work is from between 1909 and 1915, when, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the Ministry of Transportation, he undertook extended trips through many different parts of the empire. Prokudin-Gorskii was particularly interested in recently acquired territories of the Russian Empire such as Turkestan in Central Asia, which he visited on a number of occasions, including two trips in 1911.