Rybinsk is one of the oldest Slavic settlements on the Volga River. The place was first recorded by chroniclers in 1071 as Ust-Sheksna, i.e. "the mouth of the Sheksna". During this period the settlement was a regional center for craft and metal based produce and for trade. In the mid-13th century, Ust-Sheksna was laid waste by invading Mongols. For the next few centuries, the settlement was referred to alternatively as Ust-Sheksna or Rybansk. From 1504, it was identified in documents as Rybnaya Sloboda. The name is explained by the fact that the settlement supplied the Muscovite court with choice sturgeons and sterlets. 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 neighborhood, including the very last of Muscovite three-tented churches and the Ushakov family shrine.
Golden age
In the 18th century, the sloboda continued to thrive on the Volga trade. Catherine the Great granted Rybnaya Sloboda municipal rights and renamed it 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 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 Savior-Transfiguration Cathedral, was constructed on the Volga riverside from 1838 until 1851. It was built to a design that the Dean 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. . 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 prominent Swedish family during the Russian Empire. 20th-century American 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.
20th century
In the Soviet years, Rybinsk continued its impressive renaming record, for it changed its name four times: to Shcherbakov in 1946, back to Rybinsk in 1957, to Andropov in 1984, and back to Rybinsk in 1989.
The most important industries of modern Rybinsk are NPO Saturn AL Turborus aircraft engines, power and naval gas turbines manufacturing , RGT small plant 30 - 100 MW range gas turbines, electronics radiotronics , Kalashnikov Pella Rybinsk shipyard Euroyachting, Vympel Shipyard, and a hydroelectric power station. As the experts warn, the giant Rybinsk dam, which holds the Rybinsk Reservoir places the town in the imminent danger of the dam breaking and the reservoir flooding the city. The city is served by the Staroselye Airport.
Climate
Rybinsk has a four-season humid continental climate with significant differences between winters and summers, although the cold winters are still significantly less severe than those found on similar parallels further east in Russia. June, July and August all average above in average high temperatures with the five months above ensuring Rybinsk falls into humid continental rather than the subarctic category found further north. The yearly mean is around, also comfortably falling within range of warm-summer humid continental climates.
