THE RUSSIAN MUSEUM

4 Inzhenernaya ulitsa 191011 St. Petersburg
Open: 10am - 5pm
Closed: Tuesdays
Tel. 314-3448, 219-1608
Nearest metro stations: Nevsky prospekt and Gostiny Dvor

The world's largest repository of Russian art, the museum was founded in 1895 and opened to the public in 1898 as "Emperor Alexander Ill's Imperial Museum of Russian Art".

The Russian Museum is housed in the Mikhailovsky Palace, built between 1819 and 1825 by Carlo Rossi for Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich. The facades and interiors were decorated by the sculptors, Vasily Demuth-Malinovsky and Stepan Pimenov, and the painters, Giovanni Battista, Pietro Scotti, Antonio Vighi and Barnaba Medici. The main staircase and the White-Columned Hall survive in their original form. The decor of the other rooms was lost during the reconstruction of the palace as a public museum (architect Vasily Svinin). The western wing, named after its chief architect Leonty Benois (assisted by Sergei Ovsiannikov), was constructed between 1914 and 1919 to accommodate the rapidly expanding collections.

The bulk of the museum's exhibits are works of Russian art from the Hermitage, the Academy of Arts and the suburban royal palaces, as well as various other acquisitions and donations. After the 1917 revolution, its stocks were considerably increased following the nationalization of private collections.

Today the Russian Museum totals over 320,000 units of storage, illustrating the development of Russian art from the 11th century to the present day. It boasts superb collections of Russian and Soviet paintings, one of Russia's finest collections of sculpture and graphic art, and works of applied, decorative and folk art.

The Department of Early Russian Art takes pride in its world-famous icon paintings by Andrei Rublev, Dionysius and Simon Ushakov. It also boasts old wooden sculptures, stone and bone carvings, embroideries and jewellery. Especially rich and varied is the exhibition devoted to the art of the 18th and early 19th century. It displays works by the first secular artists of Peter Fs time, Ivan Nikitin, Andrei Matveyev and Ivan Vishniakov; profound portraits by Fedor Rokotov, Dmitry Levitsky, Vladimir Borovikovsky and Orest Kiprensky; canvases by Alexei Venetsianovr, Karl Briullov, Alexander Ivanov, Pavel Fedotov; and sculptures by Fedot Shubin, Mikhail

Kozlovsky and Ivan Martos. The second half of the 19th century is represented by the Itinerants (members of the Society for Circulating Art Exhibitions), Ilya Repin and Vasily Surikov. The late 19th and early 20th centuries are featured in numerous works by Isaac Levitan, Valentin Serov, Mikhail Vrubel, Konstantin Korovin, Mikhail Nesterov, artists of the Silver Age and the Russian avant-garde -groups such as the World of Art, Blue Rose and Jack of Diamonds, as well as Wassily Kandinsky, Kasimir Malevich, Marc Chagall and Pavel Filonov.

The exhibition of the Department of Soviet Art includes canvases and sculptures by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, Arkady Rylov, Nikolai Krymov, Alexander Matveyev, Anna Golubkina, Vera Mukhina, Sergei Konenkov, Peter Konchalovsky, Sergei Gerasimov, Alexander Deineka, Arkady Plastov and many others. Large exhibitions of folk art and the art of the turn of the century have recently been opened.

Temporary exhibitions from the museum's reserves and other Russian and foreign collections are regularly held in the halls of the Benois Wing.