The State Hermitage Museum announces:

10 April 2009, the press service of the State Hermitage Museum spread the message:

In connection with the fact that nowadays the problems of the disabled services in general and in the museums in particular are becoming more and more topical, the State Hermitage Museum informs:

The State Hermitage Museum is the first museum in St. Petersburg that started the practical realization of the demands of the Federal Law dated 24.11.1995 N 181-FL About the Social Protection of the Disabled Persons in Russian Federation and the Federal Target Program Social Support of the Disabled Persons for 2000-2005.

A large-scale program for the improvement of the conditions of hosting the disabled visitors is carried out in the Hermitage.

The main entrance to the museum from the Palace Square through the Great Ceremonial Courtyard of the Winter Palace and the Commandant Entrance are rigged with access ramps and lifts for wheelchairs. Wheelchairs may be borrowed (free of charge) in the Main Lobby and at the Commandant Entrance . The four lifts rigged on the staircase passages of the ground floor allow the disabled visitors to get acquainted with the expositions of the Department of the Antiquities, Department of the Ancient East, archaeological collections, the Treasure Gallery (the Diamond and the Gold Rooms). Modern elevators by the Commandant and Kapheshinian staircases allow the access to the first and the second floors.

The administrators of the Hermitage Hospitality Service provide support in organizing the visits to the museum by prior booking as well as by direct inquiry, assist with the wheelchairs on the lifts.

Special tours for individual visits (without a guide) are developed for the disabled guests of the museum, such tours consider the location of the lifts, elevators and lavatories (with specially equipped cubicles), accessible cafes, shops, local pay-phones. Specially for that category of the visitors the museum publishes leaflets with the plans of the museum and marked tours with the images of the masterpieces that are included in the tour, short accompanying texts and reference parts including the opening hours of the Hermitage, telephone numbers of the administrators, the Security Service, the medical aid station and the excursion office.

Deaf and hearing-impaired visitors can use multi-media programs. At their services there are computer kiosks in the halls as well as a computer-based educational gallery. The information about this can be found in the leaflet. The visually impaired visitors are provided with the audio information that assists them in finding their way in the museum and contains the information about the halls that they pass through and the exhibits that are presented there.

Information for the disabled visitors is also posted on the website of the Hermitage. This category of visitors has a right for acquiring (free) tickets in the museum out of turn.

The State Hermitage Museum has always paid and still pays great attention to children. Long before the Federal Law was issued, in 1991 the School Centre of the State Hermitage Museum began to work with the ‘special’ children who were mentally, psychologically or physically challenged in their development. The educational programs approved by the development and education system of the special schools were developed. Within a year the employees of the museum give more than 180 classes for children with health aspects.

The groups of children from the school for children with mental retardations, orphanages and boarding schools for visually impaired children and children with hearing disorders, health centres for children with speech disorders and with neurosis, children charity foundations have been visiting the Hermitage for many years. During the last two years the groups from the Pediatric Orthopedic Institute named after G. I. Turner joined them.

It has become a good tradition in the museum to organize annual New Year’s celebrations for the ‘special’ children at the Hermitage Theatre as well as large-scale mass programs in cooperation with the Bolshaya Medvedica and Anima charity organizations.

In 2005 due to the cooperation of the State Hermitage Museum with St. Petersburg boarding schools for blind and visually impaired children (school N 1 named after Konstantin Karlovich Grot and school N 2) the Past at the Fingertips program was developed. The program is implemented in the Staraya Derevnya restoration and storage facility (located in the residential district of St. Petersburg). The pupils from these two schools as well as the pupils of the boarding school for blind and visually impaired in Mga come here to the specially equipped archaeological class room for classes.

Over 340 classes were given for 442 pupils for the moment. One-time introductory classes are intended for the pupils of the 2nd and 3rd grades, full three-year cycle is focused on the pupils of the 4-6 grades. Depending on the audience the Past at the Fingertips program can be adjusted by terms and adapted by the content for other age groups. The first graduation ball for forty nine children that successfully completed the three-year course takes place April 24th, 2009.