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17.11.2022

Tsarskoe Selo won the Best IT Solution for Culture category at the Culture Online International Award 2022 for the VR version of the Amber Room.

Presented at the Catherine Palace in April 2022, the uniquely detailed VR project was developed by our Museum and the company Stereoforma and financially supported by PAO Gazprom.

The virtual version is an exact interactive model of the famous palace interior in Russian, English and Chinese. It gives the viewer an experience of being inside the masterpiece and zooming into some wonderful details that often remain unnoticed during a palace tour. The unique 3D visualisation, which took a year to be created, preserves the patterns and reflective properties of amber. Similar VR projects at the Palace of Versailles and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History have a lower level of detalisation.

The VR Amber Room is a great opportunity for those who cannot visit Tsarskoe Selo but will be able to see the "world's eighth wonder" in its beauty and majesty. With support from Russia's Ministry of Culture, in May 2022 the VR project joined the exhibition Peter I: The Beginning of the Amber Road which has travelled several cities and later will visit other places in Russia and abroad.

The Culture Online Award encourages cultural institutions to actively implement modern technologies. This year's award ceremony gathered 35 projects selected from 319 contestants from 53 regions of Russia, as well as from Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Switzerland.