The Museum was founded as a people's museum in 1972. Nowadays the Museum occupies two buildings - architectural monuments of the 17-18th centuries.

    The house of the merchant Sapozchnikov is a building of civil old Russian architecture of pre-Peter times. It includes interiors of merchant mode of life: the Red Chamber, the rooms of the master and the mistress, the passage, the smart covered parch. There is the exibition "Russian Samovars" on the ground floor of the house.

    The second floor is devoted to trade of native population: woodcarving, gorokhovets carpenters' toys (carvedwooden toys), embroidery, knitting, boiler-making. The expositions of the house of Sapozshnikov show peculiarity of a provincial Russian town, it's character, traditions, estate features and tempers from the 17th till the begining of the 20th century.