ABSTRACT
Founded by Catherine the Great in 1764, the State Hermitage Museum in Russia is one of the largest and best known museums in the world. It has an exceptionally rich and diverse collection of works by such world class masters as Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Matisse, Rubens, as well as Scythian and Greek gold collections, Buddhist frescoes, Islamic and Oriental artefacts, Roman and Greek antiquities (Piotrovsky, 2003). With three million objects displayed in six buildings along the Neva River, the Hermitage Museum occupies an important position alongside such leading museums as the Louvre, British Museum and Metropolitan Museum in New York. The cases study looks at the International Hermitage Friends Club as a successful global public relations (PR) strategy that allows the museum to expand its audiences and constituencies far beyond Russia’s borders.
