The Museum of History and Ethnography was founded in 1959, and after 50 years of operation, the building underwent a large-scale reconstruction. Today it is one of three museums in Georgia where a permanent exhibition of paintings by the artist Niko Pirosmani is held.
On the ground floor of the museum there is a local history hall, where ethnographic and archaeological exhibits are stored. Many of the artifacts presented were found during excavations on the territory of the ancient fortress wall in Signani, Kakheti, Areshi and Gremi. The exposition contains tools of labor and everyday life, monuments of cultural heritage, swords and daggers that date from various eras, from the Stone Age to the first millennium of our era.
The second floor of the museum is entirely dedicated to Georgian artists. There are 16 paintings by the famous representative of primitivism Niko Pirosmani and paintings by the muralist Lado Gudiashvili.
