The State Hermitage
The Hermitage Museum is Russia's best gallery of world art, one of the most prominent art museums in the world and definitely the main tourist attraction of St. Petersburg. The museum was founded in 1764 when Catherine the Great purchased a collection of 255 paintings from the German.
The main building of the Hermitage Museum is the Winter Palace, which was once the main residence of the Russian Tsars. The Baroque Winter Palace was built between 1754 and 1762 and its first resident was none other than the celebrated Catherine the Great. Some of the best Russian and most famous foreign architects worked exhaustively to ensure that this Imperial residence was one of the finest and most luxurious palaces in the world.
Today, the Hermitage boasts over 2.7 million exhibits and displays a diverse range of art and artifacts from all over the world and from throughout history (from Ancient Egypt to the early 20th century Europe). The Hermitage's collections include works by Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, a unique collection of Rembrandts and Rubens, many French Impressionist works by Renoir, Monet and Pissarro.
Address: Dvortsovaya square, 2 (Dvortsovaya Ploshchad); Kanal Griboyedova/Nevsky Prospekt metro station
