The State Tretyakov Gallery is one of the best-known picture galleries in Russia. It takes its name from its founder Pavel Tretyakov, a Moscow merchant. In the 19th century Tretyakov began to collect Russian paintings. He visited all the exhibitions and art studios and bought the best pictures. Little by little Tretyakov extended his interests and began to collect earlier Russian paintings. In 1881 Tretyakov opened his collection in St. Peterburg to the public, 11 years later he donated it to the city of Moscow. Since then the gallery has received hundreds of paintings from other museums and private collections. The Tretyakov Gallery reflects the whole history of Russian paintings from the 11th century to the present day.

Also I'd like to tell you about the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. The building was built in Greek style by Roman Klein in 1898 - 1912 to house the Museum of Fine Art, founded by the initiative of professor Ivan Tsvetaev. Since 1937 it has been known as the Puskin Museum of Fine Art. It has one of the world's largest ancient collections of European art. At present the picture gallerey has over 2 thousand works of various schools of painting which helps us to understand and appreciate the variaty of painting styles from over the centuries.

The Pushkin Museum pereodically holds exhibitions of the art of various countries and of individual outstanding artists of the past and present.