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This is an Adult School online class.
It’s because of Catherine the Great’s self-professed ‘gluttony for art’ that the Russian museum The Hermitage has a world class collection of paintings and art objects. As Tsarina of Russia for 43 years, Catherine bought over 4,000 of its paintings. She also made St. Petersburg into a major cultural center by building huge neoclassical palaces, and founded a school for women (women’s education was unheard-of in those days). Let’s take a look at her story, and understand the enlightened influence she had on Russia, and how she worked to make it feel more like a European country.
