Hermitage Museum

The Hermitage Museum (Эрмитаж) in St. Petersburg, Russia is one of the largest and oldest art galleries and museums of human history and culture in the world. The vast Hermitage collections are displayed in six buildings, founded by Catherine II of Russia in 1764 and opened in public since 1852. The main building is the Winter Palace. This was the official residence of the Russian Tsars.

The State Hermitage Museum

View of (from left) the Hermitage Theatre, Old Hermitage, and Small Hermitage
Established	1764; 261 years ago (1764)
Location	34 Palace Embankment, Dvortsovy Municipal Okrug, Central District, Saint Petersburg, Russia[1]
Collection size	3 million[2]
Visitors	1,649,443 visitors (2021)[3]
Director	Mikhail Piotrovsky
Public transit access	Admiralteyskaya station
Website	hermitagemuseum.org

The Winter Palace overlooks the Neva River.

The paintings hang amid opulent interior architecture.

Collections

Strong points of the Hermitage collection of Western art include Michelangelo, Giambattista Pittoni, Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Poussin, Claude Lorraine, Watteau, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Canova, Rodin, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, and Matisse. There are several more collections. Among the collections are the Russian imperial regalia, an assortment of Faberge jewellery, and the largest existing collection of ancient gold from Eastern Europe and Western Asia.

Cats

Some cats lives on the museum grounds. They are named the Hermitage cats. They are an added attraction for tourists.