Hermitage Museum the honor was awarded to the city of Ferrara which proposed its Castle Estense as the base. Since then, the new institution called "Ermitage Italia" started a research and scientific collaboration with the Hermitage foundation. Hermitage-Vyborg Center was opened in June 2010 in Vyborg, Leningrad Oblast. A Hermitage branch is due to open in Vladivostok by 2016, and the regional government has allocated more than Rb17.7 million ($558,000) for preliminary reconstruction work on a mansion in Vladivostok’s historic downtown district to house the satellite. The Hermitage-Siberia is due to open in Omsk in 2016. In recent years, there have been
Hermitage Museum the largest collection of paintings in the world. The collections occupy a large complex of six historic buildings along Palace Embankment, including the Winter Palace, a former residence of Russian emperors. Apart from them, the Menshikov Palace, Museum of Porcelain, Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya, and the eastern wing of the General Staff Building are also part of the museum. The museum has several exhibition centers abroad. The Hermitage is a federal state property. Since July 1992, the director of the museum has been Mikhail Piotrovsky. Of the six buildings in the main museum complex, five—namely the Winter Palace, Small