From the Hermitage to the Tretyakov: Russian Museum Powerhouses

Russia is home to some of the world’s most visited museums, where art, history, and culture draw millions of visitors each year. From imperial collections to modern galleries, these institutions reflect the country’s rich heritage and global influence. Here are some of the famous Russian museums.

Moscow

Known by different names: The Whitestone One, The Third Rome, The Forty Forties, and The First Throne, Moscow is Russia’s capital and largest city. The northernmost megacity on the planet, Moscow is located on the Moskva River in European Russia. A heart of politics, economics, science, and culture in not only Russia, but also Europe, Moscow is a haven for history buffs and cultural connoisseurs alike. Where old factories and warehouses have been turned into chic art galleries and the Pushkin Museum is growing and experimenting, this city is not short on educational and exciting imagery.

Pushkin Museum

The Pushkin Museum is located in the centre of Moscow. Once called the Alexander III Museum of Fine Arts, the museum first opened its doors in 1912. Popular from the start, especially for students and teachers of all levels, the museum would see anywhere from 700 patrons during the week to 2,500 on the weekend. The museum was renamed in 1932 to State Museum of Fine Arts and again in 1934, when it was given its current name.

The Pushkin is now home to over 670,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, artefacts, coins, metals, and photographs, as well as its own restoration workshops and one of Moscow’s premium academic libraries. The works are generally separated into four exhibitions: one featuring casts from architectural monuments and sculptures from the Near East, Classical era, Middle Ages, and both the Italian and Northern Renaissance and another with original works and cultural artefacts from Ancient Civilisations. The third features paintings from the 8th century through to the 20th century from European Old Masters, Byzantine icons, and 19th-20th-century Western-European and American painters and sculptors. The 4th and final exhibition is a peek into the personality of the individual collector.

The State Tretyakov Gallery

The State Tretyakov Gallery was officially created upon the donation made by Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov of his entire art collection, collected through his lifetime with the purpose of establishing the foundation for a national gallery. The collection, donated to the city in 1892, helped to ensure that the State Tretyakov Gallery has the largest collection of Russian art in the world. Started in 1856, Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov accumulated nearly 2,000 works in his lifetime. Today, the museum has more than 170,000 works by Russian artists alone.

The building itself was designed as if with a Russian fairytale in mind by painter Viktor Vasnetsov and was built over two years, between 1902 and 1904. The gallery was later enlarged during the later years of the 20th century, as neighbouring buildings were commandeered for the purposes of the gallery’s advancement. These buildings include the St Nicholas in Tolmachi church, originally constructed in the 17th century. Ranging from Andrei Rublev to Wassily Kandinsky, the collection touches on many styles and artists.

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg, previously known as Petrograd, and later Leningrad, was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great and was named after Saint Peter. Also with a variety of monikers (The Venice of the North, The Palmyra of the North, and The Northern Capital of Russia – a centuries-old feud between Saint Petersburg and Moscow), the city serves as a major Russian port on the Baltic Sea as well as an important European cultural centre. Saint Petersburg offers high art and prolific architecture with its astonishing history and has become an incredibly popular tourist destination. Whilst the city is filled with buildings of incredible historic value, perhaps some of the best-known, and most-visited, places include Catherine’s Palace, the State Hermitage Museum (arguably the most famous of the city’s 200 museums), and the Peter and Paul Fortress.

State Russian Museum

Established in 1895 by a decree of the Emperor Nicholas II and opened to the public in 1898, the State Russian Museum was the first state museum of Russian fine arts in the country. Today the collection is home to over 400,000 pieces of artistic treasures. With an advanced restoration centre and a key educational centre, it is a commanding academic research institute. It is central to 260 other national art museums in the country.

The Mikhailovsky Palace and Benois Wing, the main buildings of the museum, house the museum’s permanent exhibitions, which trace the history of Russian art in its entirety from the 10th to the 20th centuries. The collection is nondiscriminatory of form, genre, movement, or art school. The grounds have expanded substantially over the last 20 years, now including three gardens, two palaces, a castle, and the former abode of Peter the Great.

The State Hermitage Museum

Catherine the Great founded the State Hermitage Museum in 1764, making it figure amongst the oldest and largest museums in the world. Open to the public since 1852, its collection is made up of nearly 3 million items, only a small number of which are on permanent display. The Hermitage is home to the world’s single largest painting collection.

Such a large collection requires six buildings to house it all. These include the Winter Palace, Menshikov Palace, Museum of Porcelain, and the Storage Facility at Staraya Derevnya, each of which is partially open to the public. The most iconic of these buildings is perhaps the Winter Palace, formerly home to the Russian Tsars. Whilst under Royal occupation, the Winter Palace was also a museum: the home of the Tsars’ private treasure collection. After the fall of the house of Romanov, in 1917 the palace was declared to be a part of the Hermitage Museum. The first public exhibition concerned the history of the Revolution, and allowed the public to view the royal apartments for the first time. The museum also has several centres for exhibition abroad, and attracts an approximate 3.5 million visitors a year.

If you want to see more European museums, check out our posts on Italy, Spain, German and French.

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The text above is the excerpt of the book Art in Europe (ISBN: 9781783109005), written by Victoria Charles, published by Parkstone International.

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