Hermitage Day in St. Petersburg (Hermitage Day)

The Hermitage is the second museum in the world after the Louvre in terms of the number of works of art collected in one place The oldest treasury of foreign art in Russia, the inspection of all examples of which requires more than one year, is located in the building of the Winter Palace - the residence of the royal family December 7th is Hermitage Day in St Petersburg Catherine II began collecting a collection for the museum, purchasing 255 works by Flemish and Dutch artists in 1764 The first examples of fine and decorative arts were housed in a special wing of the palace, which was called the Small Hermitage Collections of paintings for the Empress were acquired in Dresden by the French philosopher-enlightenment Diderot, sculptures in Italy, and during the Soviet era Nadir Shah donated the treasures of the Great Mughals Increasing collections of works of art captured more and more halls of the palace Emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I paid close attention to the development of the museum The collections were replenished with material from archaeological excavations, paintings, and other exhibits The privilege of enjoying the masterpieces and visiting the museum was available only to a select few AS Pushkin was able to get into its halls only thanks to the patronage of VA Zhukovsky K Bryullov dreamed of showing paintings by Van Dyck and Rubens to his students In 1852, the Hermitage was turned into a public art museum and became available to the public Today the complex includes 5 buildings located on Palace Square and 2 service buildings The treasury of art contains about 3 million monuments of world culture The museum staff consists of cats - tailed helpers fight the intensive reproduction of rats and mice The first of the mustachioed guards was brought by Peter I from Holland Today cats are an integral part of the Hermitage Thanks to them, exhibits in 365 museum halls and storerooms are preserved The museum staff consists of 50 representatives of the cat family More than 5 million people visit the Hermitage every year Tourists from all over the world come to admire the masterpieces of art Sculptures are not only located inside the building - the roof of the Winter Palace is decorated with 176 statues, which cover the chimneys from the eyes of observers The color of the museum's façade was constantly changing - sometimes pink, sometimes red, sometimes yellow The green tint appeared during the Great Patriotic War, during which basements were used as bomb shelters Hermitage Day is celebrated annually on December 7, the day of the Holy Great Martyr Catherine Thus, the initiators of the holiday pay tribute to the empress, who laid the foundation for the collection of art collections In honor of the celebration, visiting the museum is free On Hermitage Day, new exhibitions are opening in St Petersburg, rare examples of decorative and applied art are being demonstrated, press conferences and other events are being held This is how the country's main museum celebrates its birthday