Road Surveying Party in the Tomsk Region, 1906-1908. Photographs documenting various stages in the construction of dirt roads in the Tomsk region by workers and engineers of the road-building department of the Russian Resettlement Administration. The albums date from 1906-8 and 1909. The Russian state paid for the construction of roads such as those depicted in the albums in order to connect settlers with a railroad line, a navigable river, or commercial-industrial centers. The overall purpose of the road-building program was to promote the colonization of the taiga (moist coniferous forest regions) of Siberia. The albums show the construction of roads in the region between the main line of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Chet and Kandat Rivers in Tomsk gubernia (governorate). Novosibirsk State Museum of Regional History and Folklife