This is the former Gothic Drawing-room in the apartments of Nicholas I's daughters (architect Alexander Briullov, 1838-39). The display here contains architectural objects dating from the 6th to 2nd millennia B.C. found in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Central Asia. The slab of stone bearing petroglyphs was removed from a rock near the deserted village of Besov Nos in Karelia. It is an outstanding example of Neolithic pictorial art. Of great interest, too, are the top of a staff in the form of a female elk's head from the Shigir peat bog in the Urals; an idol from the settlement known as Usviaty IV (Pskov region) and female statuettes found during excavation of the Altyn-Depe settlement in Turkmenia.
