The Fabergé Museum is small enough to see properly in two hours, and it holds the finest collection of the jeweller’s work anywhere. It sits in the Naryshkin-Shuvalov Palace on the Fontanka, restored over seven years and opened as a museum in 2013.
The core of the collection once belonged to the American publisher Malcolm Forbes. In 2004 it was bought as a whole, before it could be split up at auction, and brought back to Russia. Today the museum has more than four thousand pieces of Russian jewellery and decorative art.
You move through eleven of the palace’s rooms, among them the Knights’ Hall, the Red, Blue and Gold drawing rooms and the Gothic Room.
The Easter eggs. Fourteen eggs by the House of Fabergé, nine of them made for the imperial family. They include the Hen Egg of 1885, the first of all the imperial Easter gifts, and the famous Coronation Egg, along with the Kelch family eggs and the Duchess of Marlborough Egg.
Small treasures. Cigarette cases, frames, clocks and carved stone figures, the kind of precious everyday objects that made Fabergé the supplier to courts across Europe.
Silver and church art. Table silver and liturgical pieces from the firm’s workshops.
The rivals. Work by Sazikov, Ovchinnikov, Khlebnikov and the Rückert workshop, so you can compare the leading jewellers of St Petersburg and Moscow and see what set Fabergé apart.
Paintings and icons. Canvases by Aivazovsky, Bryullov, Makovsky, Polenov and Renoir, and Russian icons in the Gothic Room.
Your guide explains what the display cases leave out: how the young jeweller won Alexander III’s first commission, what surprises were hidden inside the eggs and which family events they marked, and how the collection travelled after 1917.
Lovers of decorative arts and jewellery, anyone curious about the last Romanovs, and travellers who want a compact, high-quality museum visit that pairs well with a city tour on the same day.
The Fabergé Museum
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 1 | $165 |
| 2 | $94 |
| 3 | $71 |
| 4 | $59 |
| 5 | $52 |
| 6 | $47 |
| 7 | $43 |
| 8 | $41 |
| People | Price per person |
|---|---|
| 9 | $39 |
| 10 | $37 |
| 11 | $36 |
| 12 | $35 |
| 13 | $34 |
| 14–15 | $33 |
| 16 | $32 |
| People | Free places | Price per person |
|---|---|---|
| 10–14 | +1 | $32 |
| 15–24 | +2 | $28 |
| 25–34 | +2 | $25 |
| 35–39 | +3 | $24 |
| 40+ | +4 | $23 |
Group rates apply from 10 people.
Skim across the Gulf of Finland by Meteor hydrofoil in forty minutes, then walk Peterhof's Lower Park with its 147 fountains. Boat and park tickets included.
A three-and-a-half-hour drive through the centre, ending on Hare Island where the city was founded in 1703, with entry to the Romanov burial cathedral.
A private two-hour walk through the Mikhailovsky Palace: a thousand years of Russian art, from medieval icons to The Ninth Wave and Repin's Barge Haulers.
Visit the Konstantinovsky Palace at Strelna, a working state residence that hosted the G8 and G20 summits, by car with a guide and entry arranged.