The open-air museum was founded in 1966 on the initiative of the famous ethnographer Giorgi Chitaia. The museum occupies 52 hectares on the northern slope above Turtle Lake. It contains 70 dwelling houses and farm buildings brought from various parts of Georgia. The ethnographic museum has 14 ethnographic zones: Kartli, Samegrelo, Adjara, Abkhazia, Svaneti, Khevsureti, Kakheti, Meskheti, Javakheti, Guria, Imereti, Racha and Lechkhumi. The exhibition zones present the farm buildings and objects characteristic of each historical-ethnographic reality.