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Museums of St. Petersburg: why we removed these materials
Editorial Position
Updated:9 min1,710 words

Museums of St. Petersburg: why we removed these materials

Here there used to be a roundup of forty museums in Saint Petersburg with prices and opening hours, alongside two separate pieces: one about the Kunstkamera and one about the Fabergé Museum. All three have been removed from every language version of the site.

The reason is not that the collections got worse. The reason is that the person who heads the city's main museum publicly described foreign exhibitions as an offensive and war as a nation's self-assertion. After those words, a museum itinerary through the city stops being the neutral cultural exchange it was created for, and our roundup stops being a harmless reference.

💡 At a glance:

  • which three pieces were removed and why the roundup was the main one
  • what the director of the State Hermitage Museum said and where it was published
  • why we do not link directly to the outlet that published the interview
  • which museum cities in Europe remain in our live sections
  • Last updated: 09/2026

Why we deleted these guides

The roundup of forty museums was one of the most-linked pages on the site: more than eighty internal links from our other texts pointed to it. It was an entry point into the city: a reader arrived from search, got a list with prices and opening hours, and then went on to individual articles. We removed both the entry point and the two separate articles, and redirected the old URLs here.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, and after that date the museum roundup on our site kept working as if nothing had changed. Updating it was pointless: you can replace the 2021 prices, but they were never the problem.

There is also a financial side that needs to be stated precisely, because the common version is wrong. The argument that "a tourist's money goes to oil and gas" does not hold: the share of oil and gas revenue in the Russian budget has fallen to roughly 22 percent, while the share of non-oil-and-gas revenue, which includes taxes from the services sector, has grown to roughly 78 percent (OSW Centre for Eastern Studies, 09.12.2025). A state museum is a publicly funded institution, and a ticket plus a visitor's related spending is domestic consumption, which has become relatively more significant for the budget than before the war.

What the Hermitage director said

The State Hermitage Museum is headed by Mikhail Piotrovsky. In June 2022, in an interview with a state-run outlet of the Russian Federation, he called the museum's foreign exhibitions a cultural special operation and a powerful cultural offensive (Novaya Gazeta Europe, 20.10.2025; statement by the Ukrainian Institute). In the same conversation he said that war is, on the one hand, blood and killing, and on the other, self-assertion of people and self-assertion of a nation (The Art Newspaper, 11.04.2023).

We present this as what it is: public statements by the head of a state institution, published in a state-run outlet and repeatedly reproduced by independent media. We draw no conclusions about the person's private life, views, or motives, and we will not.

The reaction inside the museum itself is also documented. Hermitage curator Dmitry Ozerkov, who was considered a likely future director, left Russia and said he could not work at a museum whose director supports the war against Ukraine (The Moscow Times, 03.10.2022). This is an important part of the picture: the issue is the position of the institution's leadership, not the people who work there.

The interview appeared in a state-run outlet of the Russian Federation, and we do not link to it anywhere in our text, neither in the body nor in the sources block. This is not a stylistic choice. Russian state media are on the EU sanctions list, and distributing their content is restricted for people in the EU, so we name the source in words and link to independent outlets that reproduced and verified those statements.

The same principle applies to every text in this section. If a fact exists only in a Russian state source and nowhere else, we do not publish it at all.

Where the line is drawn

We are not saying that the collections can no longer be written about. The line is drawn by the function of a text, not by its topic. Writing about the history of a collection, the provenance of objects, or the fate of a specific collection remains possible. A list of forty addresses with prices, opening hours, and advice on what to fit into a day is already a tourism service in text form.

The legal framework works exactly the same way. Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2033 of October 23, 2025 replaced point 2 of Article 5n of Regulation 833/2014 with a direct ban on providing services directly related to tourism activities in Russia (EUR-Lex). The covered services include travel agency and tour operator services, tour guide services, and advertising of these services, and the transition period ended on January 1, 2026 (Skadden, 11.2025). By its function, our roundup was closer to the work of a tour guide than to a neutral description of the city.

What this means for you as an EU reader

Item

Status 09/2026

Source

Services related to tourism in Russia

Prohibited by Article 5n(2) of Regulation 833/2014 as amended by Regulation 2025/2033

EUR-Lex

Tour guide services

Named directly in the list of covered services

Skadden, 11.2025

Transition period

Ended 01.01.2026

Skadden, 11.2025

German Foreign Office advisory

"Vor Reisen in die Russische Föderation wird gewarnt"

Auswärtiges Amt

Links to Russian state media

We do not include them; we name the source in text

EUR-Lex, Regulation 833/2014 as currently in force

We write nothing about visas, tickets, or how to get into a specific museum right now: that is trip preparation, and we do not do trip preparation.

Where to go instead

The request was about major collections in one city and about a day that can be spent in museums. The live sections of the site answer that: Italy with Florence and Venice, France with Paris, Austria with Vienna, as well as Germany and Spain. For a reader who came for imperial collections and cabinets of curiosities, the closest matches are the Vienna collections and the Florentine galleries.

The general explanation of the editorial decision for the entire section is collected in the section hub. Thematic neighbors: our position on two opera houses and our position on the Winter Palace and the fortress.

Where we stand

We believe that after these words from the museum's leadership, the museum selection stops being neutral. In our assessment, after this, a list of forty addresses no longer works as a cultural reference but as an invitation to take part in what was said out loud. That is why we removed the selection entirely, rather than adding a paragraph with a disclaimer to it.

We write about the state and its policies, not about people based on their passport. There are people in Russia who came out against the war and received prison sentences for it. Our decision not to publish guides to Russia is about money, sanctions, and reader safety, not nationality.

Publication date: September 3, 2026. Last updated: September 3, 2026.

⁉️🤔 Frequently asked questions

Is art really to blame for politics?

No, and we are not claiming that. We removed a travel guide, meaning material that suggests going somewhere and spending money. The collections themselves have not gone anywhere, and the question about international exhibitions was raised not by us, but by the museum director.

Are you sure about the quotes if you don't link to the original source?

Both statements were reproduced by independent outlets with an indication of where and when they were made: Novaya Gazeta Europe, The Art Newspaper, and a statement from the Ukrainian Institute. We cite those sources and explain above why we do not include an active link to the outlet itself.

Why were the Kunstkamera and Fabergé guides also removed, they have nothing to do with this?

Because the decision concerns the format, not individual buildings. Both texts were structured the same way as the collection: prices, opening hours, what to see while you're there. We removed that function specifically, not the subject.

Are you against cultural exchange as such?

We are against an editorial team based in the European Union selling a trip to a country that is waging war against a neighboring state. Cultural exchange is not decided by a travel guide or by us, and we do not claim that role.

Will you bring these guides back?

We are not making promises with dates. The decision will be revisited when the grounds for it change: EU sanctions, the position of the museum leadership, and the German Foreign Office travel advisory.

In short

The collection of forty Saint Petersburg museums and two separate guides about the Kunstkamera and the Fabergé Museum have been removed in full. The director of the State Hermitage publicly described foreign exhibitions as an offensive. After that interview, a museum curator left Russia. From January 1, 2026, services related to tourism activities in Russia, and their advertising to persons from the EU, are prohibited, and guide services are named directly in the list. The museum cities in Europe that we continue to cover are listed above.

How you can help

We are not collecting money and we receive nothing from the links below. These are the official websites of organizations working with the consequences of the war:

Sources

Link check date: 03.09.2026.

tourism.com.de Editorial Team
tourism.com.de Editorial TeamTravel editorial team: research, fact-checking, updates→ All publications

A small editorial team writing guides for independent travel. We travel ourselves, but we haven’t been everywhere, so we check prices, opening hours and how to get there against official sources.