Hermitage Museum Andrew W. Mellon acquired 21 works of art from the Hermitage and later donated to form a nucleus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (see also Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings). With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, before the Siege of Leningrad started, two trains with a considerable part of the collections were evacuated to Sverdlovsk. Two bombs and a number of shells hit the museum buildings during the siege. The museum opened an exhibition in November 1944. In October 1945 the evacuated collections were brought back, and in November 1945 the museum
Hermitage Volunteer Service the discussion surrounding this controversial project. The Summer University of the State Hermitage Museum is the direct result of the WHY project. Since 2009, the Volunteer Service has organized the Summer University each July in collaboration with the Russian company Rosatom. Students, often from remote areas of Russia, are invited to participate in a series of events and activities designed to educate them about cultural tradition. For many of them, the Summer University is the first opportunity to discover and to explore the notion of cultural heritage. The Volunteer Service organizes various activities in conjunction with this programme. Project Ropsha