Via HH’s blog, the Library of Congress’ Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record collection. I’ll let Hollister tell the tale:

…on the eve of the first world war and the Russian Revolution, photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii talked Nicholas into backing his plan to capture the Russian Empire on digichrome glass plates. Between 1909-1912, and again in 1915, he completed surveys of eleven regions, traveling in a specially equipped railroad car provided by the Ministry of Transportation.

Well worth searching/browsing for a while; it makes me want to pull out my copy of Arseniev.

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I wonder what the graffiti says? Also, looks like a Turkman ak öý or gara öý  – the Central Asian version of the ger – to me.