Russia, Rybinsk, 2010-Jan-03

Rybinsk (Рыбинск) is the second largest city of Yaroslavl Region (Ярославская область) in Russia. It lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Sheksna rivers.

Rybinsk is one of the oldest Slavic settlements on the Volga river. The place was first noticed by chroniclers in 1071 as Ust-Sheksna ("the mouth of the Sheksna river", Усть-Шексна). 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 ("the fishing village", Рыбинская Слобода). The name is explained by the fact that the settlement supplied Moscow court with sturgeons and sterlets. In the 17th century, when the sloboda was capitalizing on the trade of Moscow Company with Western Europe, it was rich enough to build several stone churches and cathedrals of which only one survives to the present.

In the 18th century, Rybnaya Sloboda continued to thrive on the Volga trade. Catherine II granted the Sloboda municipal rights and renamed it into the town of Rybinsk. It was a place where cargo was reloaded from large Volga vessels to smaller boats capable of navigating in the shallow Mariinsk Canal system, which connects 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.

Here is the shot of this cathedral at sunset taken from the only bridge across the Volga river in the city. The temperature was about -27C with rather strong wind...

On a trip with :iconRandomSearcher: :love:

Canon 40D, Tamron 17-50, ISO 125, F/11, hand-made HDR from 0.6 and 0.3 sec, RAW

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