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Rybinsk – a charming little old town in the Yaroslavl region, located on the picturesque banks of the Volga, and one of the most beautiful small towns in Russia, which has preserved the pre-revolutionary spirit of the merchant streets and a rich history.

The town lies at the confluence of three rivers – the Volga, the Sheksna, and the Cheriomukha, and has always been known for its fishing; even the town's coat of arms features two sturgeons.

Fish was caught here for the court of the Russian tsars, the founders of Hollywood were born here, and the creator of the Nobel Prize conducted business here – in Rybinsk were the oil refineries of the Nobel brothers, and the factory "Shipyard of the Nobel Brothers" still exists today. Until the October Revolution, Rybinsk was the largest centre for grain trade in Russia, and here the "artificial sea" – the Rybinsk Reservoir and the most powerful hydroelectric power station, which played an important role in supplying energy to Moscow during World War II, was created.

The town first appears in the chronicles in 1071 as the settlement of Ust-Sheksna, located at the confluence of the Sheksna River into the Volga.

The fishing settlement emerged in the late 15th century under Ivan III. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the settlement directly belonged to the Moscow tsars and supplied the tsar's court with fish.

Rybinsk received city status in 1777 by the decree of Catherine II "On the transformation of the fishing settlement into the city of Rybinsk," but the name Rybinsk quickly became established for the city.

After the relocation of the Russian capital to St. Petersburg in 1712, the amount of goods passing by the settlement increased significantly, leading to rapid growth of the town in the 18th and 19th centuries. Fishing, as the main source of income, became a thing of the past, and grain trade took its place. All cargo traffic stopped at the fishing settlement; here ended the deep-water route from the lower reaches of the Volga, while it was shallow further upstream. Heavy barges could not ascend further, and at the settlement, the cargo had to be transferred to smaller ships suitable for navigating shallow waters.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, Rybinsk was one of the most important centres for grain trade in the entire empire and the main centre on the Volga. Grain was actively sold, bought, and exported in large quantities abroad. By the end of the 19th century, barley and wheat played the same role for the Russian economy as gas and oil do today.

At the end of the 19th century, in the family of the commissioner of the Rybinsk office of the Volga steam navigation, the brothers Joseph and Nikolai Scheinker were born, who are known to the world as Joseph and Nicholas Schenck – the fathers of the largest film companies in Hollywood.

Nicholas, together with Marcus Loew, founded the film company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which Schenck led for three decades. Joseph was a co-founder and the first president of the studio 20th Century Fox, helped the rising actress Marilyn Monroe, and opened the world to Charlie Chaplin.

A special attraction of Rybinsk is the handcrafted signs designed in an antique style: with pre-revolutionary orthography – featuring the letter Ѣ, old fonts, and ornaments.

📍 Coordinates of the location (map point) available here

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