The primary goal of this paper is to summarize all of the published data on the Tolbachik volcanic massif in order to provide a clear framework for the geochronologic, petrologic, geochemical and to a lesser extent the geophysical and tectonic characteristics of the Tolbachik system established prior to the 2012–2013 eruption. The Tolbachik massif forms the southwestern part of the voluminous Klyuchevskoy volcanic group in Kamchatka. The massif includes two large stratovolcanoes, Ostry (“Sharp”) Tolbachik and Plosky (“Flat”) Tolbachik, and a 70 km long zone of the basaltic monogenetic cones that form an arcuate rift-like structure running across the Plosky Tolbachik summit. The Tolbachik massif gained international attention after the 1975–1976 Great Tolbachik Fissure Eruption (GTFE), which was one of the largest eruptions of the 20th century and one of the six largest basaltic fissure eruptions in historical time. By the end of the GTFE, 2.2 km3 of volcanic products of variable basaltic compositions with MORB-like isotopic characteristics covered an area of > 1000 km2. During the following three decades more than 700 papers on various aspects of this eruption have been published both in national and international journals. Although the recent 2012–2013 eruption, which is the main topic of this volume, was not as long as the {GTFE} in duration or as large in area and volume of the erupted deposits, it brought to the surface a unique volcanic material never found before. In order to understand the data from new eruptions and make significant progress towards a better understanding of the Tolbachik magmatic system it is important to be able to put the new results into the historic context of previous research.