Hermitage Museum in Russia

The Hermitage Museum is the largest art gallery in Russia and is among the largest and most respected art museums in the world. I was really fascinated with the art pieces there. I wish I had taken more pictures then.


A musuem of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia, it is the largest and oldest museums of the world. It was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise nearly 3 million items,including the largest collection of paintings in the world. The collections occupy a large complex of six historic buildings along Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace, a former residence of Russian emperors. Apart from them, the Menshikov Palace,Museum of Porcelain, Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya and the eastern wing of the General Staff Building are also part of the museum. The museum has several exhibition centers abroad. The Hermitage is a federal state property.

Out of six buildings of the main museum complex, four, named the Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage and New Hermitage, are partially opened to the public. The other two are Hermitage Theatre and the Reserve House. The entrance ticket for foreign tourists costs as much as the fee paid by Russian citizens. However, the entrance is free of charge the first Thursday of every month for all visitors and daily for students and children. The museum is closed on Mondays. Entrance is in the Winter Palace from Palace Embankment or the Courtyard

Four small rooms on the ground floor, enclosed in the middle of the New Hermitage between the room displaying Classical Antiquities, comprise the first treasure gallery, featuring western jewellery from the 4th millennium BC to the early 20th century AD. The second treasure gallery, located on the ground floor in the southwestern corner of the Winter Palace, features jewellery from the Pontic steppes, Caucasus, and Asia, in particular Scythian and Sarmatian gold. Only guided visits to the treasure galleries are allowed. No wonder we did not get to see the treasure galleries. Though we were on a package tour, we had a guide. Due to time constraint, it was a packed trip at the museum.

Pat admiring the paintings

here are three large interiors with red walls lit by a skylight from above enclosed in the middle of the Hermitage complex on the first floor of the New Hermitage. They are adorned with 19th-century Russian lapidary works and feature Italian and Spanish canvases of the 16th-18th centuries, including Veronese, Tintoretto, Velazquez and Murillo. In the smaller rooms alongside the skylight rooms we find the Italian and Spanish fine art of the 15th-17th centuries, including Michelangelo's Crouching Boy and paintings by El Greco.

The bird in Gold

Gina & Pat

At Hermitage Museum

With our guide for the day

I really enjoyed myself in the museum. As I looked back, it explains why i have this deep appreciation with art pieces, must have been my trip in Russia. I hope to visit the Louvre one day. Now we know why I am keen to explore European countries - the food, culture and history, you have to be there to experience. Such a beauty. From Russia with Love.