The Silk Museum is one of the country's oldest museums, founded by the Caucasian Handicrafts Committee in a building specially erected for the revival of folk crafts and sericulture in Georgia. The museum preserves one of the world's oldest collections of silkworm cocoons from silk-producing countries — 5,000 breeds and variations; a collection of raw silk thread reeled by hand in various ways; threads dyed with plant, mineral and chemical dyes; handicraft looms, fabrics and household ornaments; a variety of early factory-made (mainly French) fabrics; as well as photographs connected with sericulture and with the work of Nikolai Shavrov, the "first depositor" of the museum's treasury, various donations, and a collection of exotic butterflies.