Hermitage Museum Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum () is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The second-largest art museum in the world, it was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired an impressive collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky. The museum celebrates the anniversary of its founding each year on 7 December, Saint Catherine's Day. It has been open to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display, comprise over three million items (the numismatic collection accounts for about one-third of them), including
Russian Museum Gottfried Helnwein. The Ethnographic Department was originally set up in a building specially designed by Vladimir Svinyin in 1902. The museum soon housed gifts received by Emperor's family from representatives of peoples inhabiting various regions of the Russian Empire. Further exhibits were purchased by Nicholas II and other members of his family as State financing was not enough to purchase new exhibits. In 1934, the Ethnographic Department was given the status of an independent museum: the Russian Museum of Ethnography. The city of Málaga, home to thousands of Russian expats, has signed an agreement to host the first overseas branch