The display is entirely devoted to the Hermitage, one of the world’s largest museums, that is the curator of the exhibition. At the opening ceremony, speeches were made by the General Director of the State Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, the commissioner of the pavilion and Rector of the Saint Petersburg State Academic Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Semyon Mikhailovsky, the President of the Russian Federation’s advisor on cultural matters, Vladimir Tolstoi, and the Russian ambassador to Italy, Sergei Razov.

The opening ceremony in the Russian Pavilion drew more than 1,000 people, many of them journalists, representatives of museums and galleries, artists, curators, friends and partners of the Hermitage from Russia and European countries. In the first days when it was officially functioning, the exhibition attracted over 10,000 visitors.

The opening ceremony for Russia’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale

“Representing Russia in Venice today is a museum which is, at the same time, both global and very Russian.

This is not just an elegant phrase, but part of a statement that accords the museum a nature and role all its own, as a kind of organism living by its own laws and capable of creative endeavours beyond the ability of any of its component parts – objects, people, or buildings. The museum is a living, self-regulating entity that can accept or reject, do good or do evil, love or hate, teach or punish. The museum has chosen many remarkable people to be the writers of this story, all of whom gravitate towards the museum and know it well. A great film director, the finest artists and sculptors, students of the Academy of Arts, as well as cultural event managers, educators, decorators, lawyers, financial analysts… They have succeeded in conveying, each in their own way, the three most notable qualities by which our museum is recognized: it is very much like a shrine, it is a spiritual place, and it is exciting and fun.” – Mikhail Piotrovsky, speaking at the opening ceremony.