You arrive at the Hermitage on a Monday, at the Kunstkamera on the last Tuesday of the month, or at Peterhof in late October — and the doors are shut. Russian museums close one day a week, add a monthly "sanitary day" for cleaning, and occasionally shut without warning. Here is how those days work, what happens to a ticket you already paid for, and where to go instead.
The "sanitary day" explained
The term is a Soviet leftover that never went away. Once a month a museum closes for cleaning, display maintenance and technical checks. It is usually tied to a weekday — the last Tuesday, say, or the last Friday of the month. On the museum's calendar it looks like an ordinary closed day, and it is the one that catches visitors: everyone remembers Mondays, almost nobody remembers "the last Tuesday".
Separately, museums close for special service days, filming, exhibition installation or repairs in a particular hall. These are announced in the museum's own news feed a day or two ahead and rarely reach map apps in time.
What we can confirm
The details below come from the museums' own sites, but schedules shift with the season — check the source before you set out.
Kunstkamera. Closed on Mondays and on the last Tuesday of each month, which is its sanitary day. Otherwise open from 11:00. More in our Kunstkamera guide.
The Hermitage. Open 11:00 to 18:00 on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, and later on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, with evening sessions. The ticket price depends on your entry time, not on your nationality — daytime costs more than evening. Eight days a year admission is free for everyone, and those are the most crowded days of all. If you have time for only one big museum, see our Hermitage versus Russian Museum comparison.
St Isaac's Cathedral. The museum is open 10:00 to 18:00, with the ticket office closing at 17:30. The colonnade and the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood keep their own hours, longer in summer — we compared both churches here.
Peterhof. What closes here is not the museum but the point of coming: the fountains. In 2026 they are switched off on 18 October, and the closing festival falls on 26 and 27 September. The Lower Park is open 9:00 to 20:00, the fountains run until 19:45. Details in our guide to the closing of the fountains.
At the palace estates outside the city there is one more trap: the park and the palace are separate sites with separate tickets and separate schedules. The park can be open while the palace is closed for restoration, and the other way round.
Getting your money back
Refunds for museum tickets are governed by Russian government regulation No. 1491 of 18 September 2020, which sets the rules for returning tickets, season passes and guided-tour vouchers when a visitor cancels.
If the museum cancelled — an unscheduled closure, a cancelled session or tour — you get the full price back, no matter how close to the date it happened. You broke no rules and the service was not delivered.
If you cancel, the refund depends on how far in advance you ask. The closer to the visit, the less comes back, and the day before usually nothing does. The exact scale is published by each museum in its ticket terms, so check the page of that museum or its ticketing agent.
Once a refund is approved, the money must be transferred within three days. An electronic ticket is refunded through whoever sold it: bought on the museum's site, write to the museum; bought through an agent, write to the agent. Have your order number, the visit date and your bank details ready. Illness and similar documented circumstances are treated separately and can qualify for a full refund with supporting papers.
