About The Hermitage

Dear Friends!

It is a well known fact that the Hermitage has everything: the gold of the Scythians and Ancient Greeks, Buddhist frescoes, Sassanian silver, Islamic bronze, treasures of the Great Moguls, Byzantine and Russian icons, Venetian lace, brilliant collections of European paitings- Leonardo, Rembrandt, Picasso, the creations of the jewelers Pauzie and Faberge, Sevres and Wedgwood service, English silverware and the works of Augsburg goldsmiths, as well as Manzu, Messina, Soutine, Kandinsky, Malevich, and more.

The Hermitage is a whole constellation of remarkable architectural monuments: Rastrelli's Winter Palace, the chief residence of the Russian autocrats; Quarengi's Hermitage Theater; the new Hermitage, a masterpiece of museum construction by von Klenze and Stasov; Rossi's Triumphal Arch and the east wing of the General Staff, a superb administrative building by the same architect.

The Hermitage is a living monument to Russian history and culture. Its displays are housed in places where Russia's past is tangible: the room in which Peter the Great died; the apartments of Catherine II; the study where the last Empress wrote with a diamond on a window pane "Nicky is watching the hussars"; the White Dining Room where the Provisional Government was arrested; the grand St George Hall where the first State Duma (Parliament) was inaugurated; the Gallery of 1812- a unique monument to Russia's victory over Napoleon.

The spirit of Russian history lives in the Hermitage's halls. The great masterpieces reveal more than just the thoughts and feelings of their creators: they remind us of how they came to be in the museum, of Russia's cultural ties, of Russian cultural policy that was marked by especial openness to the whole world.

The Hermitage is a museum of world culture, created by the whole world and belonging to the whole world. Its doors open to welcome all those who love beauty, the labour and skill of talented hands- the fruits of artistic creativity.

Welcome!

Mikhail Piotrovsky
Director of the State Hermitage Museum