UKTV - Museum Secrets Collection (2012) Part 9 State Hermitage Museum Russia

Museum Secrets: Collection

On a quest to find the best, and most obscure, museum exhibits and explore the secrets they hold, Museum Secrets uncovers the weird, the astonishing and fascinating wonders of the world. What unexpected device did Catherine the Great use to enhance her sex life? Why did Alexander the Great prefer linen armour to bronze? And how did the falcon hunting of the Habsburg emperors lay the foundations for modern science? Testing out the theories behind the artifacts and visiting the sites they originated from, this series combines pure enthralling history with surprising detective work.

Part 9: State Hermitage Museum Russia

The State Hermitage Museum is a great example of how the walls itself have their own stories to tell - from its beginnings as a palace of Catherine the Great, to how the museum endured the siege of Leningrad during the Second World War (and how the museum's cats did not endure the war).The stories in this show included Scythian tattoos, Peter the Great's macabre anatomy collection, Catherine the Great's sex life and this odd little painting, which is just a square of black, but is worth a million dollars. The most interesting piece for me, however, was the story about Rasputin and his mysterious death. The Hermitage owns a portrait of the famous Russian mystic, which they do not display publicly - actually it seems to be kept at the very back of the storeroom. The show goes on to explain the recently developed theory that Rasputin was actually assassinated by a British spy, which I had a vaguely known about, but it did it in a great way and was fascinating to watch.

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