Mid-Twentieth Century Novosibirsk

Photographs by Semyon Fridlyand

In 2010 the University of Denver has made available to the public a digital archive of the Dalbey Photographic Collection, formerly known as the Semyon Fridlyand Archive.

Semyon Fridlyand (1905-1964) was a Soviet news photographer from the 1930s until the early 1960s. His photographs in black-and-white and color were produced for major Soviet publications and agencies including: USSR in Construction, Ogonyok, and Pravda. Fridlyand’s archive remained with his family in Moscow for four decades until it came to the United States in 2005.

In fall 2009 this massive collection was gifted to the University by Russ and Cathy Dalbey. It includes film negatives, glass plates, vintage and period prints, which documented the breadth and diversity of the Soviet empire. Post-war color photographs of industry, young families, leisure pursuits, sight-seeing, and tourism.

Among the other artifacts were photographs of the mid-twentieth century Novosibirsk – the third largest city of Russia.