Museum night 2018 – ‘Staraya Derevnya’ Restoration and Storage Centre

On the 19th of May 2018, the Hermitage Museum ‘Staraya Derevnya’ Restoration and Storage Centre will be taking part in the international ‘Museums at Night’ festival. This year, the Hermitage will be focussing on the birth of ballet, and on the interaction of European and Eastern cultures.

Visitors at the ‘Staraya Derevnya’ Restoration and Storage Centre will be greeted by a wide and varied range of activities. Guests can participate in dance classes led by the Landé Ballet School. They can learn about the first ballet school in Russia, which opened in Peter I’s Winter Palace in 1738, about the Hermitage’s close links with ballet, and even about the language of ballet. Visitors can show off their knowledge while playing the ‘Imperial Theatres of the Eighteen Century’ board game, created especially for this occasion, and can also learn about the designs of Pietro Gonzaga and Giuseppe Valeriani, two Italian set designers who worked for the Imperial Theatre in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and whose sketches are now part of the Hermitage collection. Our younger guests can learn the ‘Dance of the Butterflies’ and make their own butterfly costumes with help from our volunteers.

Hermitage volunteers have also prepared several interesting Eastern-themed activities in accordance with the Year of Russo-Indian tourism. Guests can help stage a performance of the ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ folk tale and explore its Indian roots. Visitors can also watch a unique slam poetry session centered around ‘metamorphosis’. By taking part in these Eastern-inspired workshops and craft activities, guests can discover many new aspects of the Hermitage collection. Guests can also take advantage of reduced-price tours of areas of the Restoration and Storage Centre open to the public.

The Night at the Hermitage will open at 18.00 at the ‘Staraya Derevnya’ Restoration Centre, and close at 23.00. A free shuttle bus service will be running throughout the evening from the Shukalovsky Entrance of the main Hermitage Museum complex to the ‘Staraya Derevnya’ Restoration Centre. In the main Hermitage Museum complex, the new exhibition ‘The Lombards: A People who Changed History’ will be open for the ‘Hermitage at Night’ festival until 22.00.