Sent by Ruslania.com promptly from Helsinki, Finland.Description:French Edition. The Hermitage Museum has a long history. At first, it housed a collection of palaces belonging to the imperial family; today, it is one of the richest museums in the world, whose treasures are available to the general public. The museum now occupies five buildings, each a true architectural masterpiece. Four of them stand side by side on the left bank of the Neva: the Winter Palace built in 1762 by Rastrelli, the Little Hermitage built in 1769 to a design by the architect Vallin de la Mothe, the Great (or Old) Hermitage built in 1784 by Velten, and the Hermitage Theatre by Quarenghi, linked to the Great Hermitage by an arch supporting a covered gallery. The facade of the fifth building - the New Hermitage, built in 1851 by architects Stassov and Efimov to a design by Leo von Klenze - overlooks Khalturin Street (formerly Millionnaia Street), parallel to the Neva. The portico of the New Hermitage is adorned with ten powerful granite Atlantean figures, executed from a design by Klenze by Russian sculptors led by Terebenev. Today, the Hermitage can be considered a museum of the history of world culture, from the Stone Age to the present day. Its collections are divided into six departments: Prehistory (mainly archaeological finds from the territory of the Soviet Union), Antiquity (including treasures excavated from ancient Roman and Greek cities on the northern Black Sea coast), the Orient (beginning with Egypt and Mesopotamia), Russian Culture, Western European Art (painting, graphic arts, sculpture and decorative arts), and Numismatics (coins, medals and decorations). The museum's permanent exhibition is spread over 353 rooms. Every year, the Hermitage organizes around twenty temporary exhibitions, showcasing the treasures housed in its reserves or collections from abroad.