The Hermitage

The Hermitage is a truly great museum. It has only a few fellows around the globe, comparable for the scale and quality of the collections, the size and beauty of the exhibition halls, the encyclopaedic display of the world culture and art. They are the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art , and the British Museum together with the National Gallery. Even in that illustrious group, however, there are certain unique features that set the Hermitage apart. Nowhere else is a museum of culture so tightly fused with history, the brilliant and tragic chronicle of Russia in which it always played an active role. The museum was part of the imperial residence, a single whole comprising Hermitage. Theatre and Winter Palace.