The Etur Ethnographical museum in the open – the first one of this type in the Bulgarian museum practice - was opened on September 7, 1964, 8 km south of Gabrovo. The museum territory covers an area of 7 ha and comprises 50 sites - water technical equipment, houses with craftsman's workshops to them. Places with social importance. The aim of the museum display is showing the architecture, the life-style andthe economic past of Gabrovo region during the Re vival period - the second half of 18 and the 19 centuries. More than 26 main crafts were developed in the town and the products were sold in Bucharest. Vienna, Marseille, Anatolia.

  The organisation of the museum is done by three basic methods: restoration on sites, preserved on the site transportation of originals and restoration of buildings upon previous photos.  Popular technical equipment driven by water are the first sites of the display. Dozens of lathes, water-mills and fulling-mills were built during the 19th c. along the river valleys of Yantra,Sivek and Panitcharka. The preservation of the originality  and the  active principle of the mechanical equipment are not only a museum requirements but a good social acquisition as well people can grind grain in the water mill and wash rugs and blankets in the fulling mill.

  
The exhibited 16 architectural sites show the diversity of the Revival Balkan architectures – two-storied houses with carved columns and rosettes on the doors, with spacious balconies and painted columns on the facades. The shoe the good financial status and self-confidence of the owner and the ability to combine the practical and spiritual needs of the time.

  Now as in the past first floor of the houses exhibits the Revival crafts: bakery, shoe-making, goat’s hair rugs making, confectionery, coppersmith’s trade, silversmith’s trade, pottery, woodcarving, folk musical instruments making, walnut oil making, bell-making furriery, icon painting, home weaving and cutlery at the beginning of the museum.The workshops have been rented since several years – the craftsman produces and sells his products himself in the workshop.

  Thus the visitors can watch the preserved production processes in the folk crafts, the original tools, the can speak with the craftsman and buy handmade knife, a wooden bowl, a cooper coffee-pot, many colored earthen jug, a silver bracelet, Gabrovo variegated rug, painted icons and carved icon-stands as well as medicines for the body – different herbs and ointments from herb-shop. Site with social importance – town’s clock tower, double-vaulted vaulted bridges, a stone fountain, a hotel and restaurants.