Hermitage Museum

The Greatest Museum in the World: The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia (1998)

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• published: 23 Nov 2014
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The State Hermitage (Russian: Госуда́рственный Эрмита́ж; IPA: [gəsʊˈdarstvʲɪnɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ], Gosudarstvenny Ermitazh) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums in the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been open to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three 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. Since 1990, the director of the museum has been Mikhail Piotrovsky. Of six buildings of the main museum complex, five, named the Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage, New Hermitage and Hermitage Theatre, are open to the public. The entrance ticket for foreign tourists costs more than the fee paid by citizens of Russia and Belarus. However, entrance is free of charge the first Thursday of every month for all visitors, and free daily for students and children. The museum is closed on Mondays. The entrance for individual visitors is located in the Winter Palace, accessible from the Courtyard. Films Russian Ark (2002), a Russian film by Alexander Sokurov, was filmed entirely in the Hermitage Museum, showing the Winter Palace at various stages of its history. War and Peace (1966–67) an Oscar-winning Soviet adaptation of the novel by Leo Tolstoy, was partially filmed in the Winter Palace. Television ‘Culture,’ a Russian national television channel, has been presenting the various art collections of the Hermitage to the general public for years. There are a series of programs that have aired entitled ‘My Hermitage’ that have been particularly successful. All of these programs are organized by the Director of the Hermitage, Professor Mikhail Piotrovsky, and are quite similar to the broadcasts created by Academician Boris Piotrovsky, who is Mikhail’s father. These programs were first broadcast through the Soviet Union’s ‘First’ channel, airing at the height of the museum’s boom. During this time, this channel recorded more than three million visitors every year, mostly from the Soviet Union. Another program created by the Hermitage was called ‘The Treasures of St. Petersburg,’ and was broadcast on the St. Petersburg regional television. This program gave insight into what exhibitions were being displayed at the Hermitage.[32] Treasures of St Petersburg & The Hermitage, (2003) a three-part documentary series for Channel 5 in the UK, Directed by Graham Addicott and Produced by Pille Runk. An Anglo-Estonian co-production by First Freedom Productions and Allfilm. DVD Cat No BDV057 Literature To the Hermitage, by Malcolm Bradbury, retells the story of Diderot's journey to Russia to meet Catherine the Great in her Hermitage. Petersburg, by Andrey Bely, features the Winter Canal near the palace as one of its central locations, but never names the Winter Palace directly. Ghostwritten, by David Mitchell, features as one of its protagonists a woman who works for an art counterfeiting ring whilst masquerading as a docent in a gallery room on the upper floor of the Large Hermitage. Games The Hermitage appears in the video games Civilization IV and Civilization V as a wonder of the world.[33] The Hermitage appears in the video game Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, as you find it being attacked by the Empire of the Rising Sun, in the Soviet campaign. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermitage_Museum