Hermitage museum opens new branch in Amsterdam

The Hermitage is exhibiting czarist opulence at the opening of a new branch in Amsterdam, the city where Peter the Great started Russia's fabulous state art collection 300 years ago and which inspired the design for his own capital, St. Petersburg.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands will formally open the Hermitage Amsterdam on Friday.

The museum is in a former nursing home built in the 1680s, about 15 years before the Russian czar first visited the Dutch capital to study shipbuilding. It remained a retirement facility until the last patient left two years ago.

"Peter the Great would be happy with this," Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky told reporters Thursday.
Friday's closed gala event concludes with a public orchestral concert from a pontoon stage on the Amstel River in front of the building. The museum opens to the public Saturday morning and will remain open through the first night.