The collections of the State Hermitage Museum are available to residents and guests of St. Petersburg all year round. However, the halls are periodically closed for restoration, and the calendar of events presents various seasonal events. You should find out about this before visiting the museum.
Summer is the most active tourist season in St. Petersburg. At this time, people of all ages are visiting the northern capital. Schoolchildren and students come for summer holidays. Of course, most of the guests want to visit the largest museum in Russia - the Hermitage. In the summer, he continues his work, as at any other time of the year.
The Hermitage is closed only on Mondays, as well as on May 9 and January 1. On all other days, it opens at 10.30 am and ends at 6 pm. Sunday is a shortened day, the Hermitage closes an hour earlier, as well as on the days before the holidays. Before visiting the museum, make sure that there is enough time before closing: the Hermitage ticket offices stop working one hour before the closure of the museum complex. Please note that during prime time you may be greeted by a long queue in front of the ticket office, so be sure to schedule your time. And, by and large, in an hour you can only glimpse the exhibits, so huge is the Hermitage collection.
However, if you want to visit certain expositions of the museum, you should additionally find out their schedule. So, in the Menshikov Palace the ticket offices are closed after 4 pm. You can get to the Staraya Derevnya center from Wednesday to Sunday, and only with a guided tour, there are only four sessions: 11.00, 13.00, 13.30, 15.30. Alas, you will hardly be able to see the expositions in the General Staff Building, because since 2010 they have been under restoration.
In addition, the museum halls are periodically closed for restoration. So, in June, the halls dedicated to the culture of the Scythians, the exhibition "Unknown Masterpieces", the Nikolaevsky Hall, the Big Church and several halls of the culture of the East and Western Europe on the third floor were closed. A detailed schedule for the current month is posted on the Hermitage website.
The museum periodically hosts various events that may be of interest to residents and guests of St. Petersburg. Thus, in the first half of July, the Music of the Greater Hermitage festival is open. Musicians from different countries give concerts in the courtyard of the Winter Palace, in the hall of the Academic Capella. Temporary exhibitions can also be seen in the same month. Their schedule is also posted on the museum's website.
