Nea Karvali is a village just above the Kavala–Xanthi national highway, about 8 km from Kavala. The museum is housed in a building which opened in 1995, behind the Church of Agios Grigorios. It was founded by the Nea Karvali Cultural Centre with the aim of preserving and disseminating Cappadocian Greek culture. In 1997, the European Union declared it ‘Museum of the Year’.

It displays men’s and women’s traditional Cappadocian dress; tsouhades (rugs decorated with lions and plane leaves) for holidays and weddings; the Cappadocian lyre known as the kemeni; tools and objects used in men’s occupations (farming, commerce, quilt-making, pottery); the skilfully made and decorated Cappadocian receptacles known as lik-lik that were used as water and wine pitchers.

The treasures from the Cappadocian churches which the refugees brought with them in 1924 are very important, as are the old newspapers, periodicals, and schoolbooks written in karamanlidika, Turkish in Greek script. All this reflects the lifestyle of the Greek population which lived in the depths of Asia Minor, particularly in Karvali in Cappadocia. There are also some showcases displaying artefacts of the culture of the Hettae, an ancient culture which developed in Cappadocia.

The museum runs educational programmes for schoolchildren, mainly on the theme of rugs and rug-making.