HERMITAGE MUSEUM IN ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

The Hermitage Museum is Russia's best gallery of world art, one of the most prominent art museums in the world and definitely the main tourist attraction of St. Petersburg. The museum was founded in 1764 when Catherine the Great purchased a collection of 255 paintings from Berlin. Nowadays, the Hermitage has about 2.7 million exhibits and displays a full range of world art from Ancient Egypt to early 20th century Europe. It includes works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, unique collections of Rembrandt, Rubens, French Impressionists (Renoir, Cezanne, Manet, Monet, Pissarro), plus Van Gogh, Matisse, Gaugin and sculptures by Rodin. The collection is huge and very exciting. They say that "you can be absorbed for days in its treasures and still come out wishing for more".

The main building of the Hermitage Museum is the Winter Palace which was once the main residence of the Russian Tzars. Magnificently located on the bank of the Neva River, this green-and-white Baroque-style three-storey palace is truly impressive. It has 1786 doors, 1945 windows and 1057 halls and rooms, many of which are open to the public. The Baroque Winter Palace was built in 1754-62 and Catherine the Great was the first monarch to live there. Many of the impressive interiors have been remodeled after the huge fire of 1837. Some of the best Russian and foreign architects worked hard to make this residence of the Russian tzars one of the world's most laxurious palaces.

Hermitage collections are displayed in four buildings which together make a huge museum complex: Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Old Hermitage and New Hermitage. hermitage Theater is used both for lectures and concerts. It had been calculated that if you decide to spend only one minute in front of each exhibit, you will have to stay in the Hermitage for 11 years.

Address: 191065, Dvortsovaya Naberezhnaya 34 Metro: Nevsky Prospekt/Gostiny Dvor Telephone: 311-3465, 219-8625 Fax: 311-90-09

Open: Tuesday to Saturday 10:30 am to 6 pm Sundays and national holidays 10:30 am to 5 pm Ticket offices close one hour before the closure time N.B.! The Hermitage is closed on Mondays

Admission: Adult - US$10 Photo - US$4 Video - US$8 The exhibitions at the Hermitage

DANAE: THE FATE OF REMBRANDT'S MASTERPIECE

Venue: State Hermitage Museum, Room 253 (next to Rembrandt Gallery) Open: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:30 am to 6 pm. Closed on Mondays Admission with museum ticket

Although Hermitage has an excellent collections of paintings by Rembrandt, "Danae" was always the biggest treasure of this collection. On June 15, 1985 both the Hermitage staff and visitors were shocked by a horrible act of vandalism. At 11:45 that morning a man slashed the canvas twice and then threw acid over it. Later the perpetrator, a Lithuanian national, was judged by the court to be insane. Meanwhile, Danae was feared to be lost forever.

A painstaking process of restoration began several hours after the incident. A team of restoration professionals was formed to perform this work. These people resisted the temptation to repaint the famous canvas: instead they fixed all that remained from the original paints and then the damaged areas were retouched in order to restore the impression of an aesthetically complete picture. All that took the long 12 years of hard work by restorers and artists: E.Gherasimov, A.Rakhman and G.Shirokov.

The exhibition features not only Rembrandt's restored masterpiece, but also works by Titian and J. Blanchard on the same subject. Numerous photographs demonstrate various stages of restoration process. You will also learn a lot about the history of Danae which was painted by Rembrandt in 1636 and reworked ten years later. Catherine the Great acquired the canvas in 1772 in France as part of Baron Crozat collection.

GOLDEN STOREROOM OF THE HERMITAGE (Zolotaya Kladovaya)

Venue: State Hermitage Museum Open: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:30 to 6 pm. Closed on Mondays Admission: with a tour only - contact excursion office (up a short flight of stairs to the right from the ticket office). Separate tickets are required.

Recently revamped outstanding permanent display of the jewelry collection of Russian Tzars. Excellent "Skythian Gold", Greek jewelry from the colonies on the Black sea and a new addition of excessively rich Oriental jewelry. Not as shocking, overwhelming and tiring as Moscow's Armory, but a very tasteful informative and totally enjoyable display in the spirit of the Hermitage Museum.