PowerPoint Show by Andrew

♫ Turn on Speakers

An American historian has unearthed never-seen-before pictures of Stalin-era Russia which were taken by an Army Major.

Martin Manhoff's collection has been described as a 'unique visual archive' of life in the Soviet Union in the 1950s.

He was deported for spying in 1954, and hid the photographs in his closet in Washington State.

Until today, they remained untouched, but American historian Douglas Smith has now released the stash of the pictures taken from behind the Iron Curtain.

A child walks through a run-down street in Moscow near the Moskva river. The formerly rundown road is a now a middle-class commuter area with a Holiday Inn.

Women are pictured crossing the street in front of a butchers shop in Moscow's Arbat district.

A public bus and several cars  is photographed trapped in a flood caused by summer rains in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

Russian officials are photographed from a window above the street in Murmansk, a small port city in the extreme northwest part of Russia.

Men, women and children are pictured walking past a cinema in the Ukranian capital, Kiev in 1954.

The picture shows Ostankino Palace based north from Moscow.

Hundreds of Russian soldiers are pictured lining the streets for a state-sponsored public funeral in Moscow. A parade of Black horses and a can be seen making their may through the square .

Three boys sit happyly on a bench outside the Novospassky Monastery, one of the fortified monasteries to the south-east of Moscow. It was the first monastery to be founded in the Russian capital in the early 14th century.

This photos show a woman collecting water in a bucket in the Russian countryside and heading back to a humble log cabin.

This one shows teenagers enjoying the sun in the gardens of Kuskovo, a country house and estate that belonged to the Sheremetev family. It was built in the mid-18th century and sits in the east of Moscow.

A group of teenage schoolgirls in uniform are pictured smiling and laughing as they pose for a photo which appears to have been taken at the Kolomenskoye estate.

A woman in a padded jacket and thick gloves braves the cold to pose for a photograph in the street.

Other similarly dressed  women rush past behind her, giving the camera a cautionary glance.