Opening of the new Hermitage • Amsterdam Centre

The official opening of the Hermitage • Amsterdam centre will take place June 20. Exactly at 10.00 the doors of the centre will open, and the electronic clock on the Amstelhof building counting the remaining minutes will display zero. Already June 12, in the building of the centre at a grandiose exhibition displaying items from the collections of the Hermitage entitled At the Russian Court: Palace and Protocol in the 19th Century there appeared the first visitors, the workers who had been restoring the Amstelhof and adapting it to the needs of a modern museum.

Then, from June 15 till June 18, there were politicians, museum staff, representatives of the tourist world of Amsterdam, 'Friends of the museum', lecturers, sponsors and patrons of art, the staff of the new Branch of the State Hermitage in the Netherlands that attended the new centre and got acquainted with the exhibition. Among the special guests there were those who used to live in the Amstelhof building, the former Nursing-home, its heads and personnel, as well as the 'neighbours' - people who lived in the houses situated in the proximity of the Hermitage • Amsterdam centre. In the course of those several days the number of visitors of the centre reached the level of about five thousand people.

Amsterdam is experiencing a real Hermitage boom. Almost all the excursions around the exhibition for the rest of the year have been sold out.

All the programmes for children are also in great demand.

Every day the Hermitage Friends' Club receives new members.