It was founded in 1872 after the first All-Russian Technical Exhibition on the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great at the initiative of the Society of Devotees of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography.

The collection contains over 160,000 items in 65 halls including, chemistry, mining, metallurgy, transport, energy, optics, automation, computer engineering, radio electronics, communications, and space exploration.

Their first move in this direction was to establish a library this held books documenting the history of science and technology.

From 1913 to 1918 it was the centre of discussions about Russian avant-garde, with public lectures given by Vladimir Mayakovsky, David Burlyuk, Andrei Bely, Alexei Kruchenykh, Velimir Khlebnikov.

[8] In the period of the Khrushchev thaw, its main auditorium was the place for public performances of Andrei Voznesensky, Robert Rozhdestvensky and Bulat Okudzhava.