Thousands of Color Photographs from the 1950s Taken by the American Diplomat in USSR

American historian Douglas Smith who specializes in Soviet history discovered a collection of photographs and videos in the home of Martin Manhoff, a US diplomat who served in USSR, that he took in 1952—1954.

According to Smith, after Manhoff’s wife died he was asked to check the home of a former official for valuable memorabilia. “I was amazed at what I discovered. There are thousand of color photographs taken on the streets of Moscow, Leningrad, Murmansk, Yalta, and at points along the Trans-Siberian Railroad,” Smith says.

The archive also includes unique 15-minute footage from Joseph Stalin’s funeral — it was taken from the window of the US embassy in Moscow, located in the Hotel National.

For the past several month, Smith has been digitizing and organizing the photographs that he found, at in the nearest time he is planning to make the entire archive available to the public. He has already published some of the photographs discovered in Manford’s home on his Facebook.