In 1890, after marrying the daughter of a Russian metallurgist and director of a bell, copper smelting, and steel manufacturing company, Lavrov, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky became the director of the board at his father-in-law's enterprise in Gatchina. The exact duration of Prokudin-Gorsky’s tenure in this position is unknown. It is believed that this period of the photographer's life, until 1898 when he participated in his first exhibition, contains many gaps.
In particular, it is unclear how, after moving to St. Petersburg, he continued to work as a director at his father-in-law's factory under the conditions of limited transportation accessibility from Gatchina at that time. Additionally, what Prokudin-Gorsky did during 1896-1897 remains entirely unknown.
So, around the same time—during the 1890s—a certain tax inspector (tax collector) “Your Excellency” Collegiate Assessor Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky was wandering around Turkestan. Despite holding a respectable position, his salary was modest. The job of a tax inspector was difficult—it involved constant travel to localities within the assigned district, overseeing trade and collecting taxes, and the local population, unaccustomed to obeying Russian laws, viewed the activities of tax inspectors very negatively. In short, it was not a pleasant job. Under such stress, you might think Sergei Mikhailovich took up… photography; however, that’s not the case! He turned to playing cards for money.
By the summer of 1898, “Your Excellency” Prokudin-Gorsky had failed to submit “annual trade document forms” to the Turkestan Treasury Chamber for the first half of the year on time. The chamber manager initiated an investigation, and although there was no direct evidence of intentional misappropriation of funds, he referred the case of embezzlement to court, where it was revealed that the unfortunate inspector had many personal debts—amounting to five and a half thousand rubles (with an average salary for a collegiate assessor being 135 silver rubles).
This story caused considerable confusion among specialists studying Prokudin-Gorsky's biography who believed that the service of the famous photographer as a tax inspector was an unknown chapter in his life. It wasn’t until archival materials became available that everything was clarified.
It turned out that this referred to another representative of the Prokudin-Gorsky family—a full namesake of the photographer and his second cousin. Historian Natalia Mozokhina refers to him as “the Turkestan” Sergei Mikhailovich. As it turned out, “the Turkestan” Prokudin-Gorsky was a graduate of the Moscow Infantry School, participated in the Russo-Turkish War, and was even awarded a silver medal. In 1885, he was discharged to reserve and a year later began working as an official at the St. Petersburg Treasury Chamber, where he substituted for employees; in 1889 he was transferred to Tashkent. He was married to the daughter of a retired ensign who bore another significant surname for Uzbekistan—Savitsky.
It remains unknown what kind of relationship existed between the two cousins; however, this fact allows us to speculate that the photographer’s visits to Turkestan could have had not only business but also personal motives. It is even possible that Prokudin-Gorsky paid off his brother’s debt and saved him from imminent imprisonment since the court likely acquitted the accused of embezzlement; otherwise, an obituary would not have been published in the newspaper “Kokand Leaflet” in 1909.

You can learn more about this topic in the book-album "S. M. Prokudin-Gorsky and his Turkestan cycle of photographs at the Library of Congress of the United States".
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