MOSCOW, APRIL 8, 2018 — RT and its award-winning team behind #1917Live have launched #Romanovs100 to bring the story of Russia’s last royal family to life through thousands of Romanov family photographs recently unearthed from within the national archives. Working with nearly 4,000 original photos of the Romanovs – the largest media release of its kind – across four social media platforms, the project will retell the last decades of imperial Russia over 100 days leading up to the centenary of their execution on 17 July.
In conjunction with the Russian State Archive, RT will publish the most complete collection of the Romanovs’ personal photos ever assembled across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, as a large-scale ‘digital photo-puzzle’.
Kirill Karnovich-Valua, creative producer of the project at RT said:
“The Romanovs are deemed to be among the pioneers of photography – they had several cameras and recorded almost every meaningful event in their lives. The audience will be able to discover many sides of the Romanovs: last rulers of the Russian Empire, a devout loving family, passionate travelers, amateur tennis players, dog lovers, fans of breakthrough photography, and much more.”
Each of the four platforms will retell certain pieces of the family’s narrative using different formats and perspectives.
Mini-videos based on the Romanovs' photo collection will be posted on YouTube, featuring historic aspects of the era in which the last Tsar’s family lived, as well as the little-known stories behind rarely seen photos. Photos from the family album featuring the most artistic and unusual images taken by the Romanovs will be published on Instagram. On Facebook, project followers will find high-quality panoramic photos in 180-degree format, and Russian composer and singer Peter Nalitch will record a special soundtrack to be integrated into lyrical videos for the project. On Twitter, individual accounts will tell first-person stories through personal photos.
In late 2016, RT launched one of the biggest-ever historical re-enactments on Twitter – #1917LIVE. The project has already been recognized by over a dozen international awards such as the New York Festivals, the Webby Awards, and the Shorty Awards, where it won five prizes, including one for "Best Twitter Partnership" for collaboration with world-renowned author Paulo Coelho.
RT’s #Romanovs100 project will run for exactly 100 days – from 8 April to 17 July – the day which marks the 100th anniversary of the Romanovs’ tragic execution.