The Historical Defense Museum of Tuapse is dedicated to the defense of the city during the Great Patriotic War. Founded by Eduard Iosifovich Pyatigorsky, the museum opened its doors on June 14, 1999. Its director is Mikhail Mikhailovich Balamatov.

The museum's exhibition is located in two halls and includes over 1500 exhibits. These items were collected during many years of field search expeditions at battle sites such as Mount Semashkho, Gunay, Indyk, and others, as well as in the directions of Tuapse, Goryachy Klyuch, and Khadyzhensk. This involved search organizations such as 'Memory Guardians of the Motherland', 'Rubezh', 'Obelisk', 'Memory', and others. The main materials of the exhibition are confirmed by the archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and Germany.

One of the halls is dedicated to the Tuapse defensive operation. An important part of the exhibition is a unique three-dimensional hypsometric map of the Black Sea coast from Dzubga to Sochi and part of the Kuban-Preazov lowland to Krasnodar. It demonstrates the scheme of military actions in the Tuapse direction and was handmade by museum staff and volunteers over two months. The stands display items of soldiers' everyday life and armaments of the Red Army, such as mugs, mess kits, rifles, machine guns, and fragments of fighters, as well as weapons and household items of Wehrmacht soldiers. Here, one can also see photographs of the hero defenders of Tuapse, their personal belongings, and maps describing military actions.

The Hall of Memory of the Defenders of Tuapse features a diorama titled 'View of the City of Tuapse from the Window of the Destroyed Pushkin Library', created by artist O.V. Sidorov. The diorama depicts a symbolic view from the window during an air raid by German troops, when the fighters of the 11th anti-boat anti-aircraft artillery battery are firing defensively. The hall also tells about the life of the city during wartime: it presents photographs of residents, workers of the rear, their personal belongings, awards, letters, and photographs of destroyed buildings.