October is the month when St Petersburg's exhibition posters turn over almost completely. Summer shows close on odd, very specific dates, and the new ones open in the second half of the month rather than on the first. If you plan from a listing you read in July, you will stand in front of a dismantled hall.
What closes first
Two Hermitage shows in the General Staff Building on Palace Square run only until 4 October 2026: "On the Sweetness of the World. Contemporary Indian Art" and "Opening the Palace Chambers: Art at the Court of the Emir of Bukhara". That gives you the first weekend of the month and nothing more. The Hermitage Main Museum Complex opens 11:00–18:00 on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, 11:00–20:00 on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, and is closed on Mondays. Entry runs in timed sessions, ticket desks stop working an hour before closing, and a ticket is valid only for the session and day printed on it.
The Russian Museum says goodbye on 19 and 26 October
"Vasily Tropinin", the first full retrospective of the portraitist in decades, occupies ten halls of the Marble Palace (Millionnaya Street 5/1) until 19 October 2026. Two more close on 26 October, both in the Stroganov Palace at Nevsky Prospekt 17: "Glass and Stone" and "Glass in Sculpture", around sixty glass sculptures set in 18th-century interiors. "Ivan Shishkin. The Russian Forest" in the Benois Wing (Griboedov Canal Embankment 2) lasts until 9 November, and "The Great. The Image of Woman in Russian Art" in the Mikhailovsky Palace (Inzhenernaya Street 4) until 11 January 2027.
What opens in October
The Hermitage announces six openings: Poussin's restored "Landscape with Polyphemus" from 14 October, "Konstantin Kuznetsov, a Russian Parisian" in the General Staff Building from 17 October, Evgeny Gerasimov's graphic art from 21 October, the restored "Battle of the Romans and Sabines" clock from 24 October, Swiss stained-glass drawings from 28 October and 18th-century German porcelain from 31 October. Erarta (29th Line 2, Vasilyevsky Island) opens "Harley-Davidson. The Spirit of Freedom" on 10 October; one ticket there covers the permanent collection and all eight to ten temporary shows, costs 1,500 roubles for a single visit, and U-Space installations are a separate 300 roubles. Manege on St Isaac's Square 1 runs "Scene of Action" from 25 September to 14 February 2027; entry is 400 roubles on Mondays, 500 on weekdays and 800 at weekends. The Kunstkamera (Universitetskaya Embankment 3) is open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00 with last entry at 17:00, closes for cleaning on Tuesday 20 October, and then works without days off from 21 October to 8 November; tickets are 500 roubles, or 300 for students and pensioners.
How to plan it
Lock the hard deadlines first — 4, 19 and 26 October — then add the openings, and keep the shows that run into winter as a rainy-day reserve. Buy tickets only on museum websites: the Hermitage, the Russian Museum and the Kunstkamera all warn that their tickets are sold nowhere else. Check the page of the specific exhibition on the day you go, because halls do close for restoration without notice.
