The Hermitage is one of the oldest and at the same time the largest museums in the world. If you are going to come to Saint-Petersburg, you should include a visit to the Hermitage into your plans. The museum collection is displayed in five historical buildings. About 3 million items, from prehistoric till modern times, are kept in the museum, and one can view them in more than 400 splendid rooms. There are about 2500 paintings by famous artists (Leonardo Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Rubens, Picasso, Van Gogh etc.), cameos and gems, decorated clocks, objects of gold and silver, porcelain, statues, antique vases, a large collection of coins and medals, tsars' dress, thrones, tsars' carriages, collections of weapons and many other exhibits. After the construction of the Winter Palace, Catherine the Great, an eager collector, ordered to put up the Small and the Big (today the Old) Hermitages to house her art collections. Today the Old and the New Hermitages mainly display paintings. The majority of the state rooms are situated in the Winter Palace.
Closed: on Mondays
