Rybinsk
For the aerospace propulsion manufacturer formerly known as Rybinsk
, see NPO Saturn. |
Downtown and cathedral in the 19th century. |
Rybinsk () is the second largest city of
Yaroslavl Oblast,
Russia. It lies at the confluence of the
Volga and
Sheksna rivers. Population: 222,653 (
2002 Census).
Rybinsk is one of the oldest Slavic settlements on the
Volga River. The place was first noticed by chroniclers in
1071 as
Ust-Sheksna, i.e. "the mouth of the Sheksna". For the next four centuries, the settlement was referred to alternatively as Ust-Sheksna or Rybansk. Since
1504, it was mentioned in documents as
Rybnaya Sloboda (literally: "the fishing village"). The name is explained by the fact that the settlement supplied the Muscovite court with choice
sturgeons and
sterlets.
|
General view of Rybinsk in the 1820s. |
In the
17th century, when the
sloboda was capitalizing on the trade of the
Muscovy Company with Western Europe, it was rich enough to build several stone churches, of which only one survives to the present. More old architecture may be found in the neighbourhood, including the very last of Muscovite three-
tented churches (in the Alexandrov Hermitage) and the
Ushakov family shrine (on the
Epiphany Island).
|
A 19th-century photo of a monastery near Rybinsk, now submerged under the waters of the Rybinsk Reservoir. |
In the 18th century, the sloboda continued to thrive on the
Volga trade.
Catherine II granted Rybnaya Sloboda municipal rights and renamed it into the town of Rybinsk. It was a place where the cargo was reloaded from large Volga vessels to smaller boats capable of navigating in the shallow
Mariinsk Canal system, which connects the Russian hinterland with the
Baltic Sea. With the population of 7,000, the town of Rybinsk daily accommodated up to 170,000 sailors and up to 2,000 river vessels. Consequently, the local river port became known as the "capital of barge-haulers".
The town's most conspicuous landmark, the
Neoclassical Saviour-Transfuguration Cathedral, was constructed on the
Volga riverside from
1838 until
1851. It was built to a design that the President of the
Imperial Academy of Arts, Avraam Melnikov, had prepared for
Saint Isaac's Cathedral in
St Petersburg. After Melnikov lost the contest for the best project of St Isaac's Cathedral to
Auguste de Montferrand, he sold his grandiose design to the municipal authorities of Rybinsk.
|
Grain bourse in Rybinsk. For a more recent picture, click here. |
As a trade capital of the
Upper Volga, Rybinsk formerly attracted scores of foreigners, who built a Lutheran church and an imposing
Roman Catholic cathedral, said to be the tallest on the Volga. There is also the
Nobel Family Museum, documenting the operations of that illustrious Swedish family in
Imperial Russia. Early film moguls
Nicholas Schenck and
Joseph Schenck were born in the town, and there is a grand 18th-century mansion of the Mikhalkov family, whose living members include
Sergey Mikhalkov,
Nikita Mikhalkov, and
Andron Konchalovsky.
In the Soviet years, Rybinsk continued its impressive record of renamings, for it changed its name four times: to
Shcherbakov (after
Aleksandr Shcherbakov) in
1946, back to Rybinsk in
1957, to
Andropov (after
Yuri Andropov) in
1984, and back to Rybinsk in
1989.
The most important industries of modern Rybinsk are
aircraft engine manufacturing and a hydroelectric power station. As the experts warn, the giant Rybinsk dam, which holds the
Rybinsk Reservoir (formerly touted as the largest man-made body of water on
Earth) places the town in the imminent danger of the dam breaking and the reservoir flooding the city.
*http://www.rybinsk.ru
*http://www.rybinsk.info/
*http://ryb.ru/
*http://www.rybinsk.ru/photoalbum/arch.htm
*http://www.snegoxod-rybinsk.median.ru/
*
Satellite picture by Google Maps
