Conservation and Storage Center "Staraya Derevnya"

About museum

The Conservation and Storage Center of the State Hermitage "Staraya Derevnya" is a complex of buildings covering 35,000 sq m, comprising a collections repository, an exhibition-and-lecture building, a restoration facility, engineering and administrative blocks. It was constructed in 2003 for the 300th anniversary of Saint Petersburg and was intended to relocate collections and workshops from the museum's historic buildings. The main collections building houses the holdings of the Department of Western European Art, the Department of the History of Russian Culture, the Department of the East, the archaeology of Eastern Europe and Siberia, as well as the laboratory for scientific restoration of easel paintings. The complex was expanded with a conservation-storage building, a lecture-and-exhibition building, technical facilities, a circular garden and a biocontrol building. A distinguishing feature of the repository is the presence of special equipment for moving exhibits and preparing themed exhibitions: mobile shelving, glass display-case boxes, and open-storage halls.