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The State  Hermitage  Museum is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The second-largest art museum in the world, it was founded in 1764 when Empress Catherine the Great acquired an impressive collection of paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky.

The Armoury Chamber, a treasure house, is a part of the Grand Kremlin Palace's complex. It is situated in the building constructed in 1851 by architect Konstantin Ton. The bases of the museum collections are precious items that had been preserved for centuries in the tsars' treasury and the patriarch's vestry. Some of the exhibits were made in the Kremlin workshops, others were accepted as ambassadorial gifts. The name of the museum derives from one of the oldest Kremlin's treasury stores.