Russian museums marked a boom in attendance in 2022

The number of visitors to the State Hermitage Museum and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts has increased by more than one and a half times. In 2022, more than 2.7 million people visited the Hermitage, compared to 1.6 million in 2021. According to the preliminary results of the year, about 1.2 million people visited the Pushkin Museum against 766 thousand in the past.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Moscow museums were allowed to receive no more than 50% of the maximum number of visitors during the lockdown.

In St. Petersburg, in March 2022, the requirement for mandatory presentation of QR codes was lifted. As RBC notes, "the people who were longing for culture immediately took advantage of this."

According to representatives of the Tretyakov Gallery, the increase in the number of visitors is due not only to the returning public interest in museums, but also to the development of domestic tourism.