One of the largest art museums in the world and the former residence of the Romanov czars, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, is in the historical center of the city.
Composed of five buildings, the Hermitage hosts about 3 million items dating from the Stone Age to the present, including old masters’ paintings. But it’s much more than a museum; it’s also an architectural work of art.
In 1754, Empress Elizabeth of Russia commissioned architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli to design the Winter Palace, a sumptuous baroque-style residence that took more than eight years to build. Catherine the Great then expanded the building and transformed much of the baroque interiors into neoclassical designs, the architectural fashion at the time….