Erarta is the largest private museum of contemporary art in Russia, located in Saint Petersburg. The name of Erarta Museum is derived from uniting two words, "Era" and "Arta", whose combination can be translated from Russian as "the era of art". The museum has been recognised as one of the "5 Cultural Gems" in Saint-Petersburg by National Geographic. Museum building Erarta is housed in a five-storey building constructed in 1951 for the district committee of the Communist Party and later occupied by the Synthetic Rubber Research Institute. Two sculptures installed at the entrance to the museum, Era and Arta, were commissioned by Erarta and created by sculptor Dmitry Zhukov. Museum collection Erarta Museum collection contains over 2,800 works, dating from the 1950s to the present and ranging from realism to abstraction and primitivism, by more than 300 artists from all across Russia. In addition to paintings, it includes drawings, prints, sculptures, installations, and video art. On 30 June 2015, the collection of Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art became digitally available via the Google Arts & Culture Project. History and activities Erarta Museum officially opened its doors to the public in September 2010. The museum stages exhibitions, publishes art catalogues, organises guided tours and educational programmes, and promotes a number of signature projects. From 2013 to 2017 Erarta Museum organised Erarta Motion Pictures, the world's only festival of short films about painting. In 2013–2015, Erarta hosted the CROSS ART International Festival of Synthesis of Arts. The festival was open to all applicants willing to participate, as long as their projects featured a mixture of several art forms. From 2013 through 2018 the museum was home to the Erarta Stage project, a concert venue for trending musical projects, public talks, and theatre shows. Erarta features several cinema halls. One of them (on floor 3) is screening Art-Animation – short animated films inspired by and developing the storyline of some paintings from the museum's collection. The second one is showing The Adventures of BB Square cartoon series (2014). Unique projects Russia in Erarta Russia in Erarta project is aimed at promoting contemporary Russian art and establishing a cultural dialogue between Saint Petersburg and other Russian cities. The museum's curatorial team frequently travels to other parts of the country, taking the highlights of Erarta's permanent collection on travelling exhibitions and bringing back to St. Petersburg outstanding artworks from Samara, Perm, Novosibirsk, Izhevsk, Ufa, Krasnodar,