History of the St. Petersburg

The exhibition begins with archaeological material of the twelfth to seventeenth century found on excavation sites in Moscow. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are represented in the Hermitage by a limited number of items, reflecting but a few of the aspects of the cultural development of Muscovite Russia, a strong centralized state which had unified the: various’ lands of Russia.

The exhibition consists basically of material obtained in recent years by Soviet scholars during archaeological research on ancient Slavonic settlements and burial-grounds, and on old Russian towns.

Rooms on the first floor of the Winter Palace contain the collections of the museum’s youngest department – that devoted to the history of Russian culture, created in 1941. At present the department includes the following exhibitions: The Culture of Old Russia, 6th-15th centuries; The Culture of Muscovite Russia, 15th-17th centuries; Russian Culture, 1700-25; Russian Culture, 1740-1800; and Russian Culture, 1800-60. Included in the exhibition in the Department of Russian Culture are the state apartments of the Winter Palace, which have both artistic and historical significance.

The Hermitage ranks with the very finest of the world s art museums. It is the largest and most splendid in the Russia and contains more than two and a half million works of art representing different ages, countries and peoples.