The museum grew rapidly throw out the XVIII th century and soon became one of the greatest art galleries. At the start of the XIX th century it was reorganized into special departments and the school of restoration was added.

Today the Hermitage collection consists of some 3 million pieces which are exhibited in 353 rooms, occupying 5 buildings: The Winter Palace, Small Hermitage, Large (Old) Hermitage, New Hermitage and Hermitage Theatre. All of them can be seen from the Neva river. The museums six departments boast works of art and culture, dating from ancient times to the present day.

The department of Pre-historic culture has one of the richest collections of ancient archeological funds.

The department of classical antiquity contains a unique collection of Greek and Roman sculpture, painted antique vases, cut jams and jewelry.

The department of East houses exhibits from ancient civilizations of Egypt, Asia, Turkey, Mongolia, China and Japan.

The department of Russian culture preserves and exhibits materials, dating from early Slavic times to the second half of the XIX th century. Here you can see old Russian icons, portraits, water-colors, pencil drawings, objects of applied art - porcelain, glass, stone, metal jewelry, costumes, carpets and tapestries.

The department of numismatics owns a collection of over 1 million coins, orders, medals from different countries and times of which any world museum would be proud.

The most famous of all the Hermitage departments is the department of West-European art, comprising a picture gallery and a collection of sculpture and decorative art. They date from the medieval era to the present day, including canvases of the foremost artists of Italy, Spain, Holland, France, Germany, England as well as sculptures, pencil-drawings, works of applied art.

The Perm State Art Gallery

The Perm State Art Gallery is one of the oldest Art museums in the country. Its history began long before the revolution. The special art department attached to the Perm Scientific Industrial Museum was created in 1902 and the first exhibits were received by the museum. The Art Academy presented paintings and 24 engravings from the pictures by Repin, Brulov and Vasnetsov.

In 1907 the gallery were given pictures and landscapes by Vereshagin. The exhibition was organized in 1907 and many works from Perm, Ekaterinburgh and Vyatka were left at the gallery.

After the revolution of 1917 the Scientific Industrial Museum undertook a serious and hard work in saving art values. As a result of this work in 1920 the second exhibition was held in Perm. Visitors could observe works of Aivazovskiy, Vasnetsov, Korovin-Nesterov and other famous masters. Later the gallery was extended by exceptional examples of wooden sculpture. It also got the pictures of the famous Russian painters of the XVII th - XIX th centuries. In such a way the gallery was enriched.

In 1927 the Art Museum was named The Perm Gallery. In 1932 it possessed so many exhibits that had to move to a former cathedral, a unique monument of Russian classicism. In 1945 the gallery got the name of the Perm State Art Gallery.

Not many Art galleries of the country can match the collection of the Perm State Art Gallery in variety and artistic worth. Our gallery ranks with such treasuries as the Hermitage, the Tretyakov Art Gallery and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts.

Now the gallery possesses more than 36000 exhibits, including Russian, Soviet and West-European paintings, sculpture, works of the decorative Art and numismatics.

The Old Wooden Sculpture of Perm represents an original sphere of the XVII th - XIX th centuries Russian sculpture. It was inspired by old Russian Traditions and the Perm local style of wood carving. Wooden Sculpture of Perm is produced in the technique of sculptural relief and is regarded as “carved icons”. The sculptures are marked by a powerful spiritual potention and produce a great emotional effect.