78 Orientalism and Empiredisplay of the many peoples of the Caucasus and the surrounding re-
gion. Radde founded the museum in 1867. Before this, the smaller
museum of the Caucasus Department had rapidly become a reposi-
tory for the efforts of collectors throughout the region, who supplied
gold and silver coins, belts, necklaces, buckles, a Turkish inkstand,
Persian spoons, a Persian breastplate for a horse, hairpins, pendants,
rings, and other artifacts.^131 Initially dedicated to natural history, the
collection expanded to include historical and ethnographic sections,
and by 1855 the Ethnographic Section included 3,300 representative
objects of the Caucasus “peoples.”^132 The Caucasus Department col-
lected human skulls and thus participated in early physical anthro-
pology, although local workers, who possessed “superstitions and
understandings foreign to scientific interests,” were often reluctant to
help.^133 As a result of a landslide in 1854, I.A. Vrevskii found the skel-
eton of a Chechen woman which was decorated with gold bracelets
and elaborate necklaces, and buried with gold ingots. He sent the
skeleton to Tbilisi, where it became part of the department museum’s
collection.^134 After 1867, Radde’s curators identified thirteen suitable
categories for collection for the Ethnographic Section, including
clothes, kitchen and domestic ware, “instruments of domestic use,”
musical instruments, furniture, jewellery, agricultural implements,
and children’s toys.^135
The representation of empire as a collection of peoples featured the
constant collaboration of scholars and institutions in both St Petersburg
and Tbilisi. Officials and collectors in St Petersburg relied on local
Orientalists and collectors from the frontier. For the Third International
Congress of Orientalists in 187 6, hosted by the Russians in
StPetersburg, Radde, Berzhe, N.I. Voronov, and General Stebnitskii
gathered materials from the Caucasus Museum for presentation at the
congress.^136 They even sent four “natives” to the imperial capital as
representatives of Dagestanis, Kabards, Chechens, and Abkhaz. Inter-
estingly, these individuals were required to be fluent in Russian but
dressed in local costume.^137 The Academy of Sciences Museum of
Ethnography and Anthropology was a key institution in St Petersburg
for the representation of empire. The academy president alerted the
high commander in Tbilisi about the camera as a new technology of
representation in 1880 and noted that “photographs of narodnyi types”
accompanied museums and collections throughout Europe. He needed
help from Tbilisi to fulfill his goal of representing all the “diverse tribes
inhabiting the empire.”^138
Tsar Nicholas ii announced in 1909 a new exhibit sponsored by the
museum dedicated to a “collection of figures portraying all the peo-
ples [narodnosti] of Russia.”^139 The visionaries of empire struggled