Russian Ark Russian Ark Russian Ark (, "Russkij Kovcheg") is a 2002 experimental historical drama film directed by Alexander Sokurov. It was filmed entirely in the Winter Palace of the Russian State Hermitage Museum on 23 December 2001 using a single 96-minute Steadicam sequence shot. The film was entered into the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. An unnamed narrator wanders through the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. The narrator implies that he died in some horrible accident and is a ghost drifting through the palace. In each room, he encounters various real and fictional people from various periods in the city's 300-year history.
Hermitage Museum on permanent display in several small rooms in the northeastern corner of the Winter Palace on the first floor. In 1993, the Russian government gave eastern wing of the nearby General Staff Building across the Palace Square to the Hermitage and the new exhibition rooms in 1999. Since 2003, the Great Courtyard of the Winter Palace has been open to the public providing another entrance to the museum. Also in 2003, the Museum of Porcelain opened as a part of the Hermitage on the basis of the Imperial Porcelain Factory. In December 2004, the museum discovered another looted work of