Carusel Tours
25 March 2020, updated 14 April 2020

Best Art Therapy. Hermitage and Other Russian Museums Online

Globe and Glass Tower, Singer House, Nevsky, St. Petersburg, Art Nouveau
Lilac Bush by Van Gogh from the Hermitage Collection

We continue to share with you all the latest news about online visits and virtual tours of the major Russian museums. Although most lectures and online events are in Russian, there is some wonderful content available in other languages too! We will be updating the links below regularly and, as always, we appreciate your feedback !

Tour of the Hermitage Shot on IPhone 11. Why It Is Unique and Why You Need to See It Now

Hermitage and Apple have recently released an astonishing video - the 5-hour tour of the museum shot absolutely incredibly in one continuous take on a new iPhone 11. It is shot without any cutting and editing.

Why its length is 5 hours and 20 minutes? It was the estimated time that a battery of an iPhone should have lasted. In fact, it lasted more – the crew said that when they stopped shooting a film, they still had 19% of the battery left!

It is a slow meditation video with a wonderful soundtrack that includes the works by contemporary Russian and international composers, such as Kirill Richter and Gabriel Prokofiev. The video was directed by Axinya Gog, a talented Russian director and a beautiful woman who is also the author of several popular Russian films.

A wonderful crew with professional filmmakers, choreographers and artists, all from Russia, managed to create the video where all the actors and cameramen had only one take to make it happen. Besides, Hermitage is not just an ordinary location for the film set – the former royal residence and one of the most valuable art collections in the world, of course, has many rules that the crew needed to obey.

Axinya says that she does not expect the spectators to watch the whole film at once or start from the very beginning – you can tune in at any moment of this long video, as "it is a meditation that consists of absolutely independent pieces" and it welcomes you whenever you want to join it. And what can be better therapy in the restless times that we are living through right now than watching the masterpieces from the collection of one of the most beautiful museums on our planet?

So, when you are ready, sit back, relax and start meditating:
Virtual Visits of Museums

The Hermitage Museum is also very generous in offering us to see all its collections online. You can visit virtually the exposition halls and other premises of all the buildings that form part of the largest museum in Russia. These are the Winter Palace, that is the former residence of the Russian emperors, Hermitage Theatre, New Hermitage, Old Hermitage, Small Hermitage, General Staff Building, Winter Palace of Peter I, Menshikov Palace, Museum of the Imperial Porcelain Factory and even their Restoration and Storage Centre! Besides, you can take a virtual walk through the Hermitage's Diamond Room and Gold Room and see the treasures from their collection online. Click here to go on with your virtual visit of the Hermitage.

You can see the Russian art masterpieces from the collection of the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg online on their website:

https://rusmuseumvrm.ru/collections/index.php?lang=en

And what about Moscow? The State Tretyakov Gallery has many online events, but all in Russian at the moment. In the meantime you can make an online visit to the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, that has a wonderful collection of French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists (another part of the legendary Shchukins and Morozovs Collection divided between Hermitage and this museum), as well as other precious items. Scroll down the main page of their website until you see the headline "Collections" and see the main masterpieces, such as The Girl on a Ball from the Pink Period of Picasso:

https://pushkinmuseum.art/?lang=en#

The museum also offers you to take a virtual visit further down the same page (Virtual Pushkin Museum), if you click on the image with sculptures of knights you will be redirected to another page in Russian, which is, nevertheless, does not require command of the language, you can click on the two squares in its front row it to embark on an online tour of the main buildings of the museum:

https://www.virtual.arts-museum.ru

The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art has launched online lectures and meetings, some of them are in English and you can easily join them in Zoom! See the link below for more information:

https://garagemca.org/en


Text by Alexandra Carusel Tours