Roger Fenton's Kyiv: the first photos of the capital of Ukraine, taken by the British in 1852, have been published online

In 1852, the famous British pioneering photographer Roger Fenton visited Kyiv. Thanks to him, we have the first pictures of the Ukrainian capital that have survived to this day.

The old photos and the story were published in the community "Spraha: Kyiv is interesting" on Facebook. You can see how the city looked like more than 170 years ago.

"Roger Fenton's Kyiv. The very first known calotype photographs of Kyiv and St. Andrew's Church were taken in 1852 by the famous British master Roger Fenton (1819-1869), who went down in history as a man who changed the world. In those years, Fenton began to engage in a new kind of art - photography, and his trip to Kyiv was connected with the construction of the first major bridge across the Dnipro by Charles Vigneault," the statement reads.

As noted in the community, it is impossible to say how many photos were taken in Kyiv because the ones that have survived are scattered around the world. The Briton took pictures of the Dnipro River, the panorama of Kyiv from the left bank, and views of Podil, as well as sketched the first buildings on Khreshchatyk.

Fenton presented some of the views taken in the Russian Empire in 1852 at the December exhibition at the Royal Society of Arts, and in April 1853 he organized the world's first commercial photography exhibition. "Russian beauties" were sold to the English public for 7 shillings and 6 pence, while British views were sold for only 3 shillings, and a photo with a view of the Kyiv Cave Monastery was so popular that it was asked for as much as 12 shillings.

Roger Fenton is an innovative British photographer, one of the first photographers to work in combat zones. He is the author of the first photos of the capital of Ukraine.

As OBOZ.UA previously reported, one of the forgotten symbols of Kyiv was located on the spot where the Ukrainian Freedom Arch is today, until 1979. The Elephant Fountain managed to survive the Second World War, but not the Soviet regime.

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