The Museum-reserve is a great repository of the material and spiritual culture of the Urals' mining and metallurgical business foundation and development. It is a large cultural and historical center of the Urals region, numbering hundreds of thousands visitors yearly. The museum has 170-ears-long history. Its stocks contain the unique collections, which in former time belonged to factory-owners Demidovs.

    The Museum-reserve has several branches: Nizhniy Tagil Museum of Local History; Museum of Nature and Environment; Museum of Home Life and Crafts of the mining population; Museum of History of Tray Manufacturing; Museum-Works of History of Metallurgy; Museum of History of Techniques; Memorial and Literary Museum of A.P. Bondin; Literary and Memorial Museum of D.N. Mamin-Sibiryak. The exhibitions of the Museum-reserve are located in buildings - monuments of architecture of the XVIII - XIX centu-ries (9 buildings).

    The museum-reserve includes as its part the Eco-industrial technical park "Old Demidov's plant." Its exposition shows a dam, blast furnace shop, open-hearth shop, rolling mill, water conduit, an exhibition of the railway transport, etc.