On 24 December 2005 an exhibition entitled We draw in the Hermitage opened and students from the Drawing Studio of the School Center took part in the traditional New Year's celebration. A colorful procession of children in their masquerade costumes and of parents made its way through the museum halls to the Foyer of the Hermitage Theatre, where the opening of the exhibition took place. Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage, took part in the festive ceremony. Then there was a theatrical presentation in costumes by students from the Drawing Studio of the School Center.

The Drawing Studio of the State Hermitage's School Center has been in operation since September 1957. At present more than 100 students participate in the Drawing Studio programs. Courses are held in the halls of the museum, in the studio, and out on tour where the children become acquainted not only with the creative secrets of the Old Masters and with the subtleties of the fine arts but also learn about the genres and styles of art from different ages and peoples.

Another topic of the children's courses is the history of the Winter Palace, the Hermitage, St Petersburg, and Russia in general. Staff of the School Center tries to cultivate in the children a love for what is beautiful. They teach them to understand art and develop in the children creative activity and independent thinking. Getting to know art by making their own drawings inside the Hermitage permits gifted children to continue on their artistic way in art schools, lycees and institutes. Many graduates of the Drawing Studio now work as professional artists. Others have become well-educated visitors to the arts who possess a basic knowledge of the fine arts.

Every year at Christmas time when the schools close down for the winter holidays an exhibition traditionally entitled We draw in the Hermitage opens in one of the most beautiful rooms of the museum, the Foyer of the Hermitage Theatre. This is a creative summary of the work of the Drawing Studio during the academic year gone by. There are many exhibitions held abroad, at the city level, for charitable purposes and as competitions, and in 2004 some 382 works were shown in this way. However, the exhibition at New Year's is the main one, the most important and most serious one for the Drawing Studio. This year around 200 works by students of the Drawing Studio aged 5 to 10 years old are on display.

The New Year's theatrical presentation in the Hermitage Theatre is one other very important festive event for the Drawing Studio, and teachers, students and their parents prepare for it very carefully. For the whole preceding month, the children make drawings based on the subject assigned to their age group. On day tours and in their classes in the museum halls they develop this topic, fill it with content, and then at home, together with their parents, they assemble their costumes. They compose the scenarios all together. Just before New Year's, on the eve of the Christmas holidays, the splendid presentations take place in the Theatre, which is completely filled with spectators. Each age group of the Drawing Studio presents its theatrical piece on the former Imperial stage.

Alongside the traditional work with children, electronic techniques and computer technologies are now also appearing on the walls of the Hermitage. Around 30 slide-films have been created for the children showing the different characteristics of artistic methods in the fine arts and illustrating other topics of the courses. A presentation program has been created which tells the history of the Drawing Studio and its activities. It has become possible to produce programs for children using children's drawings made in the Studio (Peter the Great as seen by Children). The Internet is also used to exhibit work by children: for example, the exhibition entitled Our Petersburg has opened on the State Hermitage's own site.

In the Drawing Studio of the School Center, a lot of work is going on to create data bases of digitized images of children's works over the past 26 years. At present these number around 2500.

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Traditional procession through the halls of the museum

Children in masquerade costumes

At the opening ceremony of the exhibition

Students of the Drawing Studio of the School Center

At the exhibition

In the Foyer of the Hermitage Theatre

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