The State Budget Institution of the Republic of Crimea "Crimean Ethnographic Museum" was founded in 1992. The museum building, constructed and consecrated in 1869, is a monument of architecture and urban planning and originally served as an orphanage for girls named after Countess A. M. Adlerberg.

Today, the Ethnographic Museum occupies one of the leading places among cultural, educational, and scientific institutions in Crimea. Its collection includes over 13,000 exhibits representing the cultures of 25 peoples and ethnic groups of the peninsula. Museum staff actively engage in collection, exhibition activities, scientific research, and educational work in the field of ethnic history and ethnography of Crimea.

Since 1999, museum visitors have been able to explore the exhibition "Mosaic of Cultures of Crimea," which showcases the economic activities, material and spiritual culture, customs, rituals, traditions, and holidays of more than 20 peoples of the peninsula, including Armenians, Belarusians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Jews, Italians, Karaites, Crimean Tatars, Krymchaks, Germans, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, French, Roma, Mordvins, Moldovans, Swiss, Mennonites, Czechs, and Estonians.

In 2009, the museum opened a unique exhibition "Crimean Casket," dedicated to the decorative and applied arts of the peoples of Crimea from the 19th to the 21st centuries.

In 2010, the Ethnographic Museum presented the project "Museum within a Museum" titled "Russian Samovar. Tea Drinking Traditions."

In 2011, a re-exposition of the German complex was conducted, which included ceiling paintings from the former German-Swiss colony of Kongrat, located in the village of Makovka in the Soviet district of Crimea.

In 2012, the Museum of Ukrainian Embroidery named after V. S. Roik was opened, including three exhibition areas, a memorial room of embroiderer Vera Sergeevna Roik, a hall "History of Ukrainian Embroidery," and a changing exhibition of works by contemporary Crimean embroiderers, students of Vera Roik and artisans working in various techniques and materials.

Additionally, the museum hosts monthly exhibitions on various themes.

The museum serves as an important informational and educational center, a kind of "model" of Crimea, a unique guide to its peoples and cultures.

Thanks to its accumulated experience, the Crimean Ethnographic Museum has become one of the centers for scientific research in the field of ethnography and national cultures of Crimea. It is also a center for the collection, storage, and study of the material and spiritual monuments of the peoples of Crimea, providing methodological assistance and conducting cultural and educational work among all social and age groups, acting as a universal center for children's national and aesthetic education.