A WALK THROUGH THE RUSSIAN MUSEUM

As always, the Russian Museum offers exhibitions to suit all tastes: from traditional folk art to the avant-garde. "Absolute Calm" is the title of a retrospective of the work of contemporary German photographer and artist Jurgen Klauke, who has made an enormous contribution to the development of photography in Germany. In the early 1970s the young avant-garde artist provided a powerful impulse to the transformation of photography from a documentary medium to an artistic language of its own. Benois Wing. Until 11 November.

An exhibition of works by Anna Staritskaya (1911-1981) opens in mid-September. She was born in Poltava, studied in Russia and Bulgaria, and lived in exile from 1925 onwards. Anna Staritskaya was a typical representative of 20th century culture, constantly searching for new artistic forms and mediums. In the 1950s she began painting abstracts. Benois Wing. Until the end of October.

About 100 works by the remarkable St. Petersburg artist Alexander Agabekov are on display in five rooms of the Stroganov Palace: printed graphics, watercolours, combined techniques and collages of glass, including a complex method of multi-layered collage, created by the artist himself. Until the end of September.

The exhibition "St. Petersburg Optics" brings together four entirely dissimilar contemporary artists: A. Sovlachkov, N. Nikitin, V. Zagonek and E. Kochergin. Each of them offers viewers his own individual vision of St. Petersburg and its metaphysics. Marble Palace. Until the end of October.

A retrospective exhibition of works by Mikhail Schwartzman (1926-1997) opens on 10 October. Schwartzman was a representative of religious art in its specific, 20th century, interpretation. Marble Palace. Until 5 November.