The State Hermitage Museum

• City
• Hermitage
• St.Isaac's Cathedral
• Russian Museum

• Peterhof
• Pavlovsk
• Yussupov' Palace
• Peter and Paul Fortress

• Marrinsky Theatre
• Alexander Nevsky Monastery
• Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood
• Catherine's Palace and Park (Pushkin)

   The State Hermitage Museum ranks among the finest world's art museums such as the Louvre in Paris, Prado in Madrid, Metropolitan Museum in New York and the British Museum in London. Its collection numbers over 3 mln items including masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, the Impressionists and many other outstanding artists, as well as sculpture, works of applied art, jewellery and numismatics. The main building of the museum is the former winter residence of Russian tsars - the Winter Palace. The magnificent palace is richly decorated with gold, frescoes, paintings and antique furniture. You are welcome to feel yourself a tsar in the fabulous surroundings and admire the world's masterpieces of art!

   With the possible exception of the Louvre and the Metropolitan in New York, there is no museum in the world that rivals the Hermitage in size and quality. Its collection is so large that it would take years to view it in its entirety — at last count, there are nearly three million works on exhibit.

   The origins of the Hermitage can be traced back to the private art collection of Peter the Great, who purchased numerous works during his travels abroad and later hung them in his residence. Catherine the Great expanded the collection considerably, and she and her successors built the Hermitage collection in large part with purchases of the private collections of the Western European aristocracy and monarchy. By the time Nicholas II ascended the throne in 1894, he was heir to the greatest collection of art in Europe.