12 of March (27 of February), 1887 Yakutsk regional statistical committee made a resolution to found a local museum at the initiative of secretary Popov A.I. The first exposition of the museum opened in 7 of June (26 of May), 1891.

    Till 1917 political exiles used to work as custodians and instaurators including E.M. Yaroslavskiy (M.I. Gubelman) whose name was given to the museum in 1924. The museum worked as regional natural history museum up to 1978.

    From 1978 till 1991 it had 20 branches and it was the republican union of the museums. In 1991 the union had broken up, but the museum was imposed a duty of being scientific-methodical center. Government for museum affairs and museum funds of the Republic of Sakha has been working within the museum since 1995.

    In 2003 new exposition was set up in connection with the opening of new three-floored building attached to the museum. Our nature, fauna and flora of taiga, forest tundra, tundra and arctic zone of the republic, also the history of Yakutia from the Palaeolithic age up to nowadays are exhibited there. Different issue-related exhibitions are displayed all the time.

    Nowadays the museum is one of the largest museums of the north-east of Russia.

    In recent years it successfully provides its own archeological expeditions to study middle age period of Yakutia.

    The museum is a member of Union of Russian museums, it has close ties with Russian and foreign museums, international museum organizations. Our exhibitions were displayed in Canada, Germany, Rumania, Austria, Mongolia, Japan, France, Poland, and Paris