The Hermitage: Three Million Objects in Six Buildings on the Neva

Catherine the Great started the collection in 1764 by purchasing 225 Dutch and Flemish paintings from a Berlin merchant to settle a debt. The paintings were housed in a small hermitage building (a private retreat) adjacent to the Winter Palace, which is the origin of the museum’s name. The 3 million objects that followed over the next 260 years spread across six interconnected buildings along the Neva embankment, with the Winter Palace at the centre, are what you’re now paying to see.

The State Rooms of the Winter Palace are worth visiting independent of the art. The Jordan Staircase (baroque entrance with malachite columns and gilded everything), the Malachite Room (125 tonnes of Ural malachite used for column facings and decorative objects), and the Pavilion Hall (28 chandeliers, a mosaic floor, a mechanical peacock clock that’s been running since the 18th century) are the main State Room attractions. They are exceptional and heavily visited.

What to Prioritise

The Italian Masters collection in the Old Hermitage holds two works by Leonardo da Vinci: the Madonna Litta and the Benois Madonna. Both are genuine works rather than studio copies, which makes the Hermitage one of the few places outside Milan where you can see authenticated Leonardos. The paintings are not large; the crowds around them can be.

The French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists are in galleries on the third floor of the Winter Palace, above the State Rooms, and are undervisited because many people exhaust themselves below. Matisse’s The Dance (a large preparatory version) and the Shchukin collection of Picasso, seized from private Moscow collectors after the Revolution and at the Hermitage since the 1920s, are here. This is one of the most significant collections of early 20th-century French painting outside Paris.

Scythian gold (Rooms 14-26 on the ground floor) covers ornamental objects from nomadic cultures of the Eurasian steppes: animal figures, jewellery, weapons. Technically and artistically extraordinary and far less visited than the European galleries.

Practical Information

Check current entry conditions and pricing at hermitagemuseum.org before visiting, as requirements for foreign nationals have changed since 2022 and may continue to change. Pre-booking online is always advisable to avoid queuing on the days you have planned.

The museum opens Tuesday through Sunday, 10:30 to 18:00 (until 21:00 on Wednesdays and Fridays). Allow three hours minimum, four is better. The choice of which sections to cover should be made before you arrive; the museum is large enough that wandering without a plan produces frustration.

St. Petersburg Beyond the Hermitage

The Russian Museum in the Mikhailovsky Palace holds the best collection of Russian painting from the 18th to 20th centuries: Repin’s enormous narrative paintings, Malevich’s suprematist works, early Kandinsky. It covers territory the Hermitage largely ignores and is an excellent half-day.

Palace Square (Dvortsovaya Ploshchad) in front of the Winter Palace is one of the great urban spaces in Europe. The Alexander Column, a granite monolith standing 47.5 metres raised in 1834, is balanced purely by its own weight with no internal fastening. Stand and look at it for a few minutes.

Getting to St. Petersburg from Moscow: the Sapsan high-speed train takes 4 hours and is comfortable. International access depends on current visa and travel conditions; check requirements before making plans.