The Kunstkamera, properly the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, is Russia's oldest museum. It occupies a distinctive baroque tower on the Vasilievsky Island embankment opposite the Admiralty. The collections cover the ethnography of the peoples of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania, with particularly strong holdings on Siberia and the Russian Far East — much of it gathered by 18th- and 19th-century scientific expeditions.
The famous attraction, though, is the upstairs cabinet of curiosities and the anatomical collection assembled by Peter himself — preserved deformities, oddities of nature, and early scientific specimens that draw a steady crowd. The museum is small enough to see properly in two hours and is included on most Hermitage ticket combinations. Photography is restricted in the anatomical rooms.