The Hermitage museum occupies 6 magnificent buildings situated along the embankment o f the Neva River, right in the heart of St Petersburg. The oldest building of this unique architectural ensemble is The Winter Palace. It was designed and built by the architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli in1754-1762. The construction of this architectural ensemble was finished in the middle of the 19th century. Catherine the Great is considered the founder of the Hermitage collections. She began with a collection of 225 paintings that were acquired in 1764. Those canvases were displayed in two parallel-connected art galleries. Only closest friends of the Tsarina had an opportunity to enjoy them.

Often Catherine the Second bought the entire collections as well as the single items. The Tsarina also commissioned a lot of items: paintings, sculptures, etc. The grandsons of the Tsarina - Alexander the First and Nicholas The First made a big contribution in the extension of the family collection. A part of the family collection was opened to the public in 1852. But a complete transition into museum was done after 1917. A huge number of objects of art taken from the nationalized private collections were added to the collections of the museum. Now, the Hermitage collection consisted of over 3,000,000 items and presents the development of the world culture and art from the Stone Age to the 20th century.

There are the departments of: Primitive culture and art, Oriental culture and art, Numismatics, Classical antiquities, West-European culture and art and the Special collections of the Gold Room and of the Diamond Room. The West-European department contains the masterpieces by: Simone Martini, fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, El Greco, Diego Velasquez, Goya, Raphael, Antoine Watteua Jean Baptiste Greuze, Fragonard, etc. There is a big collection of paintings by the French impressionists. It includes the paintings by: Claude Monet, August Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezannes, Henry Matisse, Pablo Picasso, etc.