The State Museum of the History of Religion is the only museum in Russia, and one of the few in the world, to focus on the history of the emergence and development of religion.
The museum’s roughly 200,000 exhibits are dedicated to the history and culture of different countries, epochs, and peoples: from antiquity in Egypt and Israel to the early European Middle Ages, Ancient Greece and Rome to modern times, and Buddhism to Islam. The museum collection contains archaeological finds dating back to the 6th millennium BC.

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The Russian Museum of Ethnography is the country’s largest centre for preserving and studying the traditional cultures of more than 157 ethnic groups living in Russia and beyond. The museum was founded in 1902 by decree of Emperor Nicholas II. The building on Inzhenernaya Street was designed in the early 20th century especially for the museum by architect Vasily Svinyin. The museum collection contains more than half a million exhibits and includes items of material and spiritual culture, unique photographs of daily life and the celebrations and rituals of the many peoples of the former Russian Empire from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from reindeer herders in the Arctic tundra to the inhabitants of the mountains of the Caucasus and the nomads of Central Asia. The museum’s permanent exhibitions are dedicated to the peoples of European Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

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The museum is located in the historical city centre and housed in two mansions built at the start of the twentieth century, one the mansion of Mariinsky Theatre prima ballerina Matilda Kschessinska, a pearl of St. Petersburg Art Nouveau (architect A.I. von Gauguin). In 1917 it served as the headquarters of the Bolshevik revolutionaries and was often visited by Lenin, Stalin, Zinoviev, and Sverdlov, among others.

The museum deals primarily with the major political, economic, and cultural transformations of the 19th-21st centuries, decisive moments in Russian history.

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Forum participants can visit the Winter Palace State Rooms and take in the museum collections on display in the Small, Large, and New Hermitage.

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Tour guides are available for an additional fee.

Guided tours are available in Russian and English, with groups of up to 15 people touring 4 times daily. Tours last 1.5 hours.

A pioneer of the museum approach to photography in Russia, the Rosphoto Centre is concerned primarily with collections and research. The exhibition halls, housed in a beautiful Art Nouveau building on Bolshaya Morskaya, regularly host photo exhibitions on the history of photography and its current state. Barbara Klemm, Vladimir Antoshchenkov, Franco Fontana, and Boris Smelov are just some of the famous photographers whose works have been shown at Rosphoto in recent years. The exhibitions are often supported by an educational programme, and a visit to an exhibition often ends in the museum shop, where there is a good selection of books on the visual arts.

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Participants will visit the Catherine Palace Museum and learn about its more than 300 years of history, the work of the architects who built and decorated it in the 18-19th centuries, and the achievements of those who restored the palace in the aftermath of the Great Patriotic War.
The tour takes one hour.

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Participants with a badge enter through the main entrance.

Russian speakers have the choice of joining a Russian language tour group at the entrance to the museum.

An Audio Guide is available in English, German, Italian, French, and Chinese for those who don’t speak Russian.

Mikhailovsky Palace is the main building of the Russian Museum. The tour will acquaint participants with the history of Russian art, from iconography to the paintings of the late 19th century. The museum’s permanent exhibition features works by K. Bryullov, I. Aivazovsky, I. Repin, V. Surikov, and A. Kuindzhi among many others.

Duration of the tour is 1 hour.

Free entry by participant's badge.

The Palace and Park ensemble of Pavlovsk was created in the late 18th – early 19th centuries, the heyday of Russian classicism, by a brilliant cast of world famous architects and decorators: C. Cameron, V. Brenna, D. Quarenghi, P. Gonzago.

The halls of the palace are home to works of art purchased or commissioned by the owners of Pavlovsk and gifts received from European monarchs during their travels in 1781–1782. A huge collection of paintings, porcelain, bronzes, furniture, carpets, and sculptures are on display in the Palace. Among the masterpieces are works by P. Rubens, C. Van Loo, I. Martos, and G. Robert.

Pavlovsk combines the best of man and nature and has been enchanting people with its harmony and serenity for more than two centuries. This world heritage masterpiece enjoys the protection of UNESCO. The tour includes the Pavlovsk Palace State Rooms and museum collections.

The tour can accommodate up to 20 EWF participants and will take place in Russian at the scheduled time. A badge is required to attend.

Duration of the tour is 1.5 hours.