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Russian Museum

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The State Russian Museum is a huge home for art.

Sankt-Petěrburg 119
Sankt-Petěrburg 119

It sits on Arts Square in Saint Petersburg. This museum holds more Russian fine art than any other place in the world. It covers a total area of over 30 hectares. People love to visit and see the many different styles. In 2022, the museum had 2,651,688 visitors. This made it the twelfth most-visited art museum on Earth.

Sankt-Petěrburg 119
Sankt-Petěrburg 119

The museum works to keep art safe and beautiful. Experts work in a special group called the Museum Valuables Restoration Service. They use many small workshops to fix different things. There are workshops for painting, metalwork, and even cloth. They also care for wooden sculptures and stone art. In 2014, they restored 4,511 different items. Some of these were very hard to fix.

Sankt-Petěrburg 119
Sankt-Petěrburg 119

This museum has a long and interesting history. It was started on April 13, 1896. Emperor Nicholas II created it to remember his father, Alexander III. The museum had a grand opening on March 17, 1898. At first, it took art from the Hermitage Museum and the Imperial Academy of Arts. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, many private collections moved here too. This included a famous painting called Black Square by Kazimir Malevich.

Sankt-Petěrburg 119
Sankt-Petěrburg 119

The museum uses many grand buildings to show its art. The main building is the Mikhailovsky Palace. It was built between 1819 and 1825 by an architect named Carlo Rossi. The rooms inside have fancy Italian-style decor. Another part is the Benois Building, which was finished in 1919. The museum also uses the Marble Palace and the Summer Palace of Peter I. These buildings help hold the massive collection of art.

Sankt-Petěrburg 119
Sankt-Petěrburg 119

You can see many kinds of art from long ago until now. The collection has items from the 10th century up to the 21st century. It includes old Russian icon paintings and modern art. There is also a special part called the Russian Museum of Ethnography. This part shows gifts from many different people in the Russian Empire. Some art even travels far away to a branch in Málaga, Spain. This branch opened in March 2015 in an old tobacco factory.

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