In 1892, on the initiative of progressive public figure, doctor V. N. Dmitriev, the Yalta branch of the Crimean-Caucasian Mountain Club adopted a resolution to organize a historical museum in one of the rooms of the specially built building of the club. Later the departments of geology, archeology, ethnography, botany and zoology appeared.
In pre-revolutionary times the funds were replenished by donations, but from the first days of Soviet power the systematic work on collecting exhibits began. In the pre-war years Yalta Museum of Local Lore was the center of cultural life of the city. After the Great Patriotic War the museum resumed its activities on April 3, 1946, located in the building of the former church (built in 1910-1914 by architect N. P. Krasnov).
Today Yalta Historical Museum is a complex museum complex. It includes exposition departments: the history of Soviet society, pre-revolutionary history, Glade of fairy tales, House-Museum H. 3. 3. Biryukov, House-museum of K. A. Trenyev and P. A. Pavlenko, applied holography, as well as two sectors — archaeology and progressive Russian culture of Yalta.
The collection of the museum is about 75 thousand original exhibits. In the first post-revolutionary years CrimeaOHRIS (Crimean regional committee for museums and protection of monuments of art, antiquity, nature and folk life) transferred to the museum a large collection of applied art and antique ceramics from palaces, EILL and dachas of the South Coast. Valuable materials from archaeological excavations were added to the museum in the following years.
Photographs, documents tell about the formation of Yalta — a bourgeois resort, about the stay in the city of prominent figures of culture and science, about the struggle of workers led by the Yalta Bolshevik organization for the establishment of Soviet power. Presented, materials related to the implementation of Lenin’s decree «On the use of the Crimea for the treatment of workers», the establishment and development of the socialist resort.
Of special value — exhibits dedicated to the heroism of the workers of the South Coast during the Great Patriotic War. The exposition reflects the successes of Yalta workers in the post-war construction, in the fulfillment of the planned tasks of the five-year period, tells about the prospects of reconstruction and development of the South Coast resorts.
The museum receives up to 780 thousand visitors a year.