Located on the banks of the Neva in the center of St.Petersburg, the Kunstkamera has been the symbol of the Russian Academy of Sciences since the early 18th century. Founded to Peter the Great's Decree, the Museum opened to the public in 1714. Its purpose was to collect and examine natural and human curiosities and rarities. Today, collections of Peter the Great's Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) are among the most complete and interesting in the world. These collections contain nearly one million artifacts and reflect the diversity of traditional cultures in the Old and New World. The Museum has always been one of the world's largest centers where human cultural heritage is studied, continuing the traditions of the great Russian cultural and physical anthropologists of the 18 - 20th centuries.
Contemporaries wrote that collection of Kunstkamera was one of the richest among museums of Europe. The visitors were invited cordially and served round with coffee and zukerbroad, and for nobler persons there was Hungarian with snacks. At the time in West Europe man had to pay for visiting such museums, and a fee was considerable. The Kunstkamera's collections one can see for free. Peter believed that “enthusiasts should be taught and entertained, instead of taking money from them.”