St. Petersburg is unofficially called the city of the museum by its locals because of the number of museums in this city. Whenever you look, you can find at least one museum or gallery that represents art, culture, or history in St. Petersburg. These museums are only a part of why St. Petersburg has become one of the top tourist destination cities in Russia, and one of the reasons why the tour to Russia has become popular among tourists from around the world. Millions of tourists have traveled to Russia during the past years, and many have plans to do that soon because of the number of attractions in the St. Petersburg tour.
Although museums and historical sites play a significant part in attracting tourists from all around the world to St. Petersburg, more factors make people travel to Russia; besides the museums, St. Petersburg has several cultural centers that are popular places for both tourists and locals because of their fun events; there are also several parks and gardens in St. Petersburg, which many people visit during their travel to Russia since they are delightful and romantic places; there is also option to cruise on the Neva River and its beautiful canals, which are as romantic as the canals in Venice, Italy.
As you can see there are other things than visiting museums that tourists can do during their Russia tour, but museums and historical sites are still a great deal in St. Petersburg tours for travel agencies and tourists, and there are at least four to five museum in most of St. Petersburg tours. However, since there are loads of museums and other attractions in St. Petersburg, most of the small museums and even major museums remain unseen by tourists and even travel agencies.
One of the top sorts of museums in St. Petersburg are the museums of art and culture, and many tourists are interested in visiting them because they let people who have decided to travel to Russia to get to know Russian culture and art. The art and culture museum is also split into several subcategories, including Fine art museums, literary museums, theatre and music museums, and decorative art museums.
Though museums of decorative art are quite fascinating and entertaining, most of them remain overlooked by the tourists on the tour to St. Petersburg. It should be said that from the establishing of the city of St. Petersburg, Peter the Great had invited various European artists and manufacturers to introduce the new methods to Russia; from then, St. Petersburg has developed into the center of innovation in the applied and decorative arts. We can name several decorative art museums in St. Petersburg to confirm our statement, such as Fabergé Museum, which locates inside the Shuvalov Palace, or the Museum of Applied Art, which is part of Baron Stieglitz Academy of Art and Industrial Design and currently belonged to the academy. Though these two examples are quite large and famous, many tourists won’t have enough time on their tour to Russia to visit these places, just like the Museum of Glass Art, which is quite fascinating, but since it locates on Yelagin Island and isn’t included in many Russia tour programs, many people wouldn’t even know about this astounding place.
The Museum of Glass Art locates inside the Orangery of the Yelagin Palace and displays remarkable works of glass art to its visitors. The first collection of the museum was from the works of a leading glass-making company in Leningrad during the Soviet era, which was closed in the 1990s. While about 7000 glassworks were about to sell or ruin, many people, including the staff of the Yelagin Museum have worked together to save this incredible collection, which they did; in 2000, the collection of glass art has stored in the Kitchen building of Yelagin Palace.
Based on the saved collection of glassworks, the first St. Petersburg Museum of Glass Art was created and opened its doors to the visitors in 2010. Throughout the years, the museum got more items and expanded its space multiple times; particularly in 2018, where a new collection of artworks purchased by the museum or have been donated to the museum by various people, including the artists or descendants of the artists who have worked in the prime time of Soviet glass production in various factories in the country. There was also another section added to the museum that was for the Western European glass art of the 19th-20th centuries as well.
Currently, the museum has been housed in three tiny halls inside the Orangery of the Yelgain Palace, on Yelagin Island. You can visit both island and the museums inside it during your tour to Russia, but since this island isn’t included in many Russia tours, we recommend you ask your tour leaders about the possibility of the visit, and if there was an option, then go and see the island, which is one of the beautiful islands of St. Petersburg on your tour to Russia. The Museum contains around 8000 of artworks, including glasswork for home use, a collection of crystal, architectural features, and glass figurines.
We at the Star Travel Company recommend our tourists to visit this museum as well as all the other small museums of St. Petersburg because they are worth the visits, but we also recommend our tourists to plan the best tour to Russia or let us do the planning for them, so they have enough time to visit the museum they love and other fun activities during the Russia Tour.
We encourage our tourists to visit our weblog if they are keen to find out more about the top Russia attractive places, including the best places they can visit in St. Petersburg tour or the top museums of Moscow on their Russia tour. Our tourists can also read about our tips and pieces of advice about how to travel to Russia on our weblog for free.
