Saint Petersburg Celebrated the Day of the Hermitage Cat

Specially for those attending the occasion, the Hermitage holds games, competitions and master classes, as well as organizing guided tours of the cats’ basement home. By tradition, the State Hermitage also holds an art competition to mark the day.

“The Hermitage cats are an example of how a museum legend becomes its symbol and one of the symbols of Saint Petersburg. Now they have inspired young gifted artists from across Russia and help to fulfil children’s most cherished wishes,” Director of the State Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky commented.

The day began with an awards ceremony for the winners of the schoolchildren’s art competition for a “Portrait of a Hermitage Cat” in the Atrium of the General Staff building. This year, for the second time, it was organized in conjunction with the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art and the “Movement of the First” all-Russian public-and-state movement of children and youth. Entries could be submitted by children anywhere in the country. The young artists were supposed to send in a picture of a cat that, in their opinion, might be found in the Hermitage. Entrants were also required to give a brief description of the artwork, telling about its feline subject.

The entrants and guests were greeted by Maria Khaltunen, assistant to the General Director of the State Hermitage and press secretary of the Hermitage cats: “We are pleased that the participants in the competition are able to be present for the exhibition of their works in the General Staff building and the Winter Palace. Today we shall be seeing two types of opening: one modern-style, interactive – when the artists enter the display space, tell about their works and interact with journalists and with one another; the other more traditional – in the Winter Palace by the Winter Palace, with a ribbon getting cut.”

From the thousands of pictures that entrants aged between 8 and 18 submitted, 64 finalists’ works were selected and then from those three ultimate winners – one for each age category. As a prize, the winners will each get to stay this summer at the famous Artek international children’s centre in the Crimea. The winners’ works will be turned into murals in Donetsk, Lugansk and Artek. The pictures that appear in the exhibition will be passed on to the Donetsk Republican Local History Museum, while additional copies will be sent to military hospitals.

At the end of the ceremony, the winners of the art competition were presented with special gifts from the Chetyre Lapy (“Four Paws”) pet shop chain, the Nevskaya Palitra artistic paints factory, the Imperial Porcelain Factory and the BOWL WOW petfood brand.

After the awards ceremony in the General Staff building, the participants moved on to the Winter Palace, where the exhibition of the 19 winning works in the “Hermitage’s Choice” category was formally opened.

For those who came to the Hermitage for this celebratory day, games, competitions and master classes were organized in the Great Courtyard of the Winter Palace. Children were able to paint wooden cutouts of cats and also visit the cellars to see where and how the Hermitage cats live.

“Purring postcards” were produced specially for the occasion, They bear a reproduction of one of the winning works of the children’s art competition and a comic illustration about cultured cats drawn by the Pskov-based artist Yekaterina Vasilyeva. When you scan a QR code on the back of the postcard you can hear a feline greeting. Those attending the Day of the Hermitage Cat could send “purring postcards” to anywhere in the world from the Russian Post counter in the Great Courtyard.

The Day of the Hermitage Cat 2024 programme has been prepared by the State Hermitage with the support of the project’s partners – the companies Chetyre Lapy  and Aquaphor.