The modern State Hermitage is a sophisticated Museum complex. The main exposition of the Museum occupies five buildings situated along the embankment of the Neva river, the main of which is considered to be the Winter Palace and the Eastern wing of the General staff on Palace square. The Museum's collection includes about three million works of art and monuments of world culture from the stone age to the present century.Hermitage originated in 1764 as a private collection of Catherine II, after she was transferred from Berlin 317 of valuable paintings
