The State Hermitage is one of the world biggest art and cultural museums.

Founded in 1764, the Hermitage comprises eight departments: the Primitive Culture, the Culture of Antiquity, the Culture of the East, the History of Russian Culture, the Numismatics, the Western European Culture, the Department of Science and Education, and the Restoration Department.

There are more than 350 halls and about 3 million exhibits in the collection of the Hermitage museum.

The State Hermitage museum is unique. It is not an ordinary art gallery, but a marvelous tsars' palace, that accommodates outstanding collection of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Raphael, Rembrandt, Poussin, Manet, Renoir and many others.

This collection occupies 5 buildings: the Winter Palace, the Small Hermitage, the Old Hermitage the New Hermitage and the Hermitage Theater. Exploring these palaces of the Hermitage ensemble you will be impressed not only with the valuable artistic collection, but also with the beauty of the interiors. Plafonds, parquets, stucco-works, gilded woodcarvings are unbelievably outstanding.