St. Petersburg’s Hermitage blends art and tech in immersive tour project (VIDEO)
Visitors can now explore iconic and hidden museum sites with virtual guides
Russia’s State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and tech giant VK have launched a new digital project offering visitors guided virtual tours.
The project, titled ‘One Museum. Three Views’, offers three themed digital routes hosted by writer Sergey Minaev, comedian Evgeny Chebatkov, and singer Klava Koka, the Hermitage and VK announced on Tuesday. Each tour caters to a different generation and is accessible via a chatbot on the Hermitage’s VK page or by scanning QR codes in the museum’s halls.
The routes cover 33 locations within the museum, including both well known and lesser seen spaces. Visitors are guided by pre-recorded audio and video content that highlight rare exhibits, historical context, and behind-the-scenes details. The digital experience was developed by Hermitage researchers and the Hermitage-Media department.
Minaev’s tour features several grand ceremonial halls such as the Field Marshal and St. George Halls. In the latter, he is joined by Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky, who explains the hall’s symbolic dedication to St. George. Minaev also takes viewers to the Hanging Garden and Italian art halls, focusing on the museum’s resilience when the city was under siege during World War II.
Chebatkov’s route offers a humorous take on the museum’s artworks. In the Romanov Portrait Gallery and before works like Diego Velázquez’s ‘The Breakfast’, he explores how humor in art changed across Russia’s imperial eras, with commentary rooted in historical research.
Koka’s tour is geared toward younger audiences, exploring hidden architectural features and musical history. She visits areas such as the Leonardo da Vinci Hall and the Skylights and shares preservation insights in collaboration with Hermitage staff.
All routes end in the Rastrelli Gallery, a media zone offering interactive activities such as digital painting, style-based self-portraits, and multimedia exploration of artworks.
Piotrovsky described the initiative as “a fascinating pioneering project” that creates “a space filled with unexpected allusions and experiences with which viewers can interact and debate.”
The Hermitage is one of the world’s largest museums, housing over 3 million artifacts. VK is Russia’s leading tech platform by user numbers, reaching more than 95% of the country’s internet users.
