Presentation of the New Guide-Book Round the State Hermitage Museum

A competition for the cultural institutions of Saint Petersburg included in the Russian Federation State Register of Cultural Heritage Objects of Great Value was launched in 1999 to award the grants supplied by the Russian government from the loan provided by the World Bank.
The State Hermitage Museum (together with its long-term partner Slavia publishing house) offered a project of issuing a new illustrated guide-book conceived as a “personal room-to-room guide” round the Museum. The partner’s share in the project was the financing of the preparation work for the new edition and all overheads. The grant received by the State Hermitage Museum amounted to $200 000 and was used for financing printing materials including high quality paper. The new guide-book was printed in Milan.The Italian printing -house Elemond S.P.A. won the tender and signed the contract for printing the edition.
The new edition satisfies the highest standards applied to guide-books by the largest museums of the world. It is published in four language versions (Russian, English, French and German) in circulation of 50 000 copies.The book consisting of 320 pages contains more than 600 coloured illustrations.