The State Hermitage Museum, the largest museum of cultural history, preserves, studies and makes accessible to visitors outstanding monuments of the cultural heritage of the past. The Hermitage went a long and difficult way from a palace collection of paintings to one of the largest museums in the world. And now in the very name "Hermitage" the French word has been forgotten, meaning "a place of solitude," so unlike a world-famous museum in a quiet corner where you could retire. Every year, more than two and a half million people from different republics of the Soviet Union and different countries get acquainted with the treasures of culture and art stored in the Hermitage. Numerous excursions, hall consultations, lectures and conferences are organized for visitors.