Dimitri Ivanovich Ermakov (1846–1916)
Georgia and Azerbaijan, c.1870s-`1890s

A selection of 8 albumen prints, image size 20.2 x13.8cm (smallest) to 28.2 x21.3cm (largest), pasted down onto album pages, card size 30 x20cm (smallest) to 40 x30cm (largest), each numbered in the negative, and captioned in ink lower margin; featuring images of Georgia. Subjects include a view of Mount Kazbek, Georgia; Poti Harbour, Georgia; Surami Fortress and surrounding area, Georgia; a Mingrelian hut; studio portrait of a Georgian woman in traditional clothing, lying on a daybed with a floral decorated tapestry; portrait of three Lezgins men, an ethnic group native to southern Dagestan, Azerbaijan, wearing the traditional papakha hats, seated on the ground next to a tree, and one smoking a long pipe.

Particularly interesting are two prints, image size 28.2 x 21.3cm, card size 40 x30cm, depicting the oil fields in Baku, Azerbaijan; one print shows an oil well gushing, and the other the railway for commercial transports and the oil wells in the distance.
It's plausible that the oil fields captured by Ermakov were the ones owned by the Nobel Brothers. Robert Nobel moved to Baku in 1873, and two years later, he purchased a large portion of the Balakhani Oil Field, where he built a new refinery. The Nobel Brothers Petroleum Production Company was founded in 1877, followed by Branobel in 1879. In the following years, they added infrastructures, such as storage depots, pumping stations, and the first oil tanker. Between 1898 and 1901, Baku produced more oil than the United States. The modernization that the brothers brought revolutionized the oil industry as we know it today.