Myshkin (Мышкин) is a historic medieval town in Yaroslavl Oblast. Its name is translated as "Mouse" in Russian (mysh- мышь). According to a legend in 16th century Russian prince Fyodor Mstislavsky fell asleep on the banks of the Volga river. He was awakened by a mouse that crept on his face. At first he reacted angrily to a small creature, but once he saw a poisonous snake crawl near him, he realized that the mouse actually saved his life. So the mouse became the symbol of the new town.
By train
From Moscow from the Belorussky railway
station according to a special schedule by train No. 602 Ya
Moscow-Rybinsk to the Volga station, then by bus about 20 km.
From
St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara, by
trains St. Petersburg-Ivanovo or St. Petersburg-Samara to Volga station.
By car
From Moscow along the M8 highway (Yaroslavskoye highway),
in Sergiev Posad along the Uglich highway, the P104 highway, through
Kalyazin and Uglich, then Altynovo, Sera.
From Saint-Petersburg:
Novgorod, Tver, Kashin, Kalyazin, Uglich, Altynovo, Seru
Tikhvin,
Cherepovets, Poshekhonie, Rybinsk, Okhotino, exit to the right bank of
the Volga, then by ferry across the river to Myshkin.
Novgorod,
Vyshny Volochek, Bezhetsk, Sonkovo, Pishchalkino, Nekouz, Shipilovo.
From Yaroslavl, Ivanovo, Kostroma by car through Bolshoe Selo, Novoe
Selo, exit to the right bank of the Volga, then by ferry across the
river to Myshkin.
By bus
From Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, Uglich and
Bolshoi Selo.
On the ship
Some sightseeing and cruise ships
make a stop at the Myshkin pier.
An important means of transport is the ferry, which transports from the right bank of the Volga to Myshkin and back. The ferry operates in the summer from 6.00 am until the last flight from the right bank at 21.30.
Objects of cultural heritage of federal significance:
Presence places; late 19th century
Serebryakov House; late 19th
century
The estate of P. E. Chistov; 1830-1850
The estate of T. V.
Chistov; 1830-1850
Settlement (a monument of archeology); 10th-12th
centuries
Objects of cultural heritage of regional significance:
Temple complex of Nikolsky Cathedral; 1766-1837
Zemsky district
government; 1840-1860
Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin;
1805-1820, designed by the Italian architect Giovanni Manfrini. It was
built on donations from the townspeople, and the merchant Zamyatkin gave
the most.
House of Litvinov; 1850s
House of Pozhalovs; 1850s
In Myshkin, there is a non-profit institution
"Myshkinsky Folk Museum", which unites eight museums. Among them is the
only Mouse Museum in the world, which contains a variety of images of
mice: toys, dishes, sculptures, etc. In August 2008, the International
Mouse-2008 Festival was held in the city for the second time, during
which the Mouse Palace was opened.
In addition to the "People's
Museum", the city has a museum of local lore (for which the names
"Museum of Nikola" and "Kurov-center" were assigned), the Museum of Flax
and the Museum of felt boots. There is also a school of applied arts,
with a pottery workshop. Here you can make any pottery and paint it
yourself.
In 1998, ANO "Center of Crafts" Myshgorod "" was
founded with the aim of preserving and developing folk crafts and
crafts, traditions of folk national culture and habitat, aesthetic
education of the younger generation.
It was first mentioned in the 15th century as the
village of Myshkino. The name, according to E. M. Pospelov, is
associated with the non-calendar personal name Mouse (recorded in
Novgorod, 1545). In 1777-1927. - the city of Myshkin, later the village
and the working settlement of Myshkino; since 1991 - again the city of
Myshkin.
There is also a toponymic legend, according to which one
prince (presumably Fyodor Mikhailovich Mstislavsky) lay down to rest on
the banks of the Volga and woke up from the fact that a mouse crawled
over his face. At first he was angry, but then he saw that the mouse had
saved him from a crawling snake.
People settled in these parts in the Stone Age; on the
site of the present Myshkin, until the devastating Mongol invasion,
there was a fortified settlement.
Probably, in the 15th century,
a village already existed here: the first written mention of it is found
in a charter of 1605, issued to the boyar Danila Ivanovich Mezetsky for
"a Moscow siege seat, for service and blood." But by the end of the 17th
century, the village was attributed to the Moscow Chudov Monastery.
The monastery property benefited Myshkin: the village grew, many
outbuildings appeared - barns, sheds, mills. However, in 1764, in
connection with the secularization reform, the village was taken into
the department of state economy and transformed into a settlement. She
acquired the status of a city in 1777, along with a coat of arms in the
form of a shield, “having a green field, cut into two: in the silver
field, the coat of arms of Yaroslavl, in the other part in the scarlet
field, the mouse proves the name of this city.”
By the 19th
century, Myshkin had become a fair trade center. Merchants from all the
Volga cities came here, butter, eggs and bread were sent from here to
St. Petersburg. Fabrics, including linen, were produced here. The 19th
century, followed by the beginning of the 20th, became the heyday of
Myshkin: at that time, schools and gymnasiums were opened, a printing
house appeared at the public library. The cultural and educational life
of Myshkin was very rich: there was a pedagogical college, there were
noble and sports clubs, a natural history museum and an art gallery,
performances were staged in the drama theater, a local newspaper was
published and the weather was monitored at its own weather station.
Timofei Vasilyevich Chistov - merchant and head
Chistov's father,
the founder of the most famous and richest merchant dynasty in the city,
was an Uglich peasant. At some point, he took up the trade in bread and
moved to Myshkin. Chistov Sr. bought grain in the lower provinces and
sent it to St. Petersburg on his own ships, the production of which he
established right there. For his activities, Vasily Chistov was awarded
an honorary award - the gold medal "For Useful", the right to be called
an honorary citizen of Myshkin and to pass this title on to his
descendants.
Timothy, continuing his father's business, increased
the capital left to him by almost eight times. The Chistov families
purchased several houses on the main streets of Myshkin, actively
engaged in charity: they put the church in the cemetery (and next to it
- their family crypt), one of their mansions was transferred to the city
for the construction of a hospital in it. Now this building houses a
library donated to Myshkin by his other glorious citizen, Fyodor
Opochinin.
After the revolution
The city was partially flooded
during the construction of the Rybinsk reservoir, then in Myshkin -
already in the status of an urban-type settlement - pipelines, gas
compression and oil pumping stations were built.
In 1927, the
city was transformed into the village of Myshkino, since 1943 - the
urban-type settlement of Myshkino. Changes began only after perestroika:
in 1986 the village was included in the list of historical settlements
of the RSFSR, in 1988 the name Myshkin was returned, and in 1991 - the
status of the city. A huge role in this was played by the Myshkino local
historian Vladimir Grechukhin, who was supported by many famous people,
including Dmitry Likhachev and Bulat Okudzhava.
Since the
mid-1990s, Myshkin has become a major tourist center. A complex of
museums (the Myshkinsky Folk Museum) has been created in the city,
including the Museum of the Mouse, the symbol of the city. Hotels have
been built, historical buildings have been reconstructed. Myshkin is
visited by up to 140 thousand tourists annually.
Positive environmental factors: Myshkin is located on
the left, steep bank (up to 10 m) of the Volga River, which provides
natural ventilation and the absence of stagnant air zones, near forests
- a source of air improvement and environmental improvement. In the
north of the city there is a coniferous forest that can form a
sustainable ecological environment. The city itself is dominated by the
private sector, which provides a high percentage of landscaping
(gardens) within the settlement. There are no enterprises with hazardous
industries.
Negative environmental factors: stagnant bays at the
mouths of rivers and streams flowing into the Volga; the Uglich-Volga
highway in the west of the city, characterized by local emissions,
chemical contamination of the soil and noise; ferry crossing with the
movement of vehicles through the territory of the city; wood processing
with the presence of wood waste; gas stations with emissions polluting
the territory with oil products; compressor station KS-18 of the
Myshkinsky Linear Directorate of Main Gas Pipelines of OOO Gazprom
transgaz Ukhta in the west of the settlement, partially polluting the
air basin; a poultry farm on the western border of the city; heating
boiler house in the central part of the settlement; chlorination of
drinking water at a water treatment plant; treatment facilities in the
northern part of the city with the discharge of treated wastewater into
the Volga in the city; deterioration and pre-emergency condition of
engineering communications.
There is practically no industry on the territory of
Myshkin. Not far from the city there is an oil pumping station and 5 gas
compressor shops of the Myshkinsky linear production department of main
gas pipelines (a gas compressor station owned by PJSC Gazprom), the
total number of employees of which is about 800 people.
The city
has more than 50 retail outlets and several catering establishments. The
main direction in the development of Myshkin is tourism. Work to attract
tourists and create a tourist infrastructure began in 1996 with the
International Festival "Mouse-1996".
Electricity is supplied from the Myshkin substation
35/10kV. As of 2008, there are 34 transformer substations. The total
installed capacity of transformers is 9.37 MVA, the average load of
transformers during their own maximum hours is 80%. The total length of
10 kV urban distribution networks is 18.93 km. According to the design,
0.73 km are cable lines and 18.2 km are air networks. Distribution
network 0.4 kV.
Telephonization is carried out by the existing
automatic telephone exchange with a capacity of 1680 numbers; loading is
99.9%; networks are in good condition. Radiofication is carried out from
a radio unit equipped with amplifiers; 1300 points; 3 main programs; the
state of the networks is unsatisfactory. Programs are received from the
Volga repeater and there is cable television, which allows receiving up
to 30 programs.
The source of water supply is water intake from
the Volga River 3.5 km upstream of the city in the village of
Koptyushka. 95% of the population is provided with water from the city
water supply, equipment loading is 95%. The length of the existing water
mains is 5.2 km, the total length of street networks is 26.5 km. The
water supply networks are in an unsatisfactory condition. A number of
enterprises use water from artesian wells located on their own territory
for their own needs[26]. Residential and public buildings are connected
to the sewer network with a total length of 10 km. There are three
sewage pumping stations on the network, the fourth, technological, on
the territory of sewage treatment facilities. Residential one-story
building (private sector) is partially sewered. Biological wastewater
treatment. Release of treated wastewater north of the settlement into
the Volga downstream, 6 km from the water intake facilities of the
settlement. Wastewater treatment plants are overloaded. There is no rain
sewer. Partially organized runoff of rain and melt water through the
cuvette system.
Gas supply is carried out by natural gas
according to a two-stage scheme: high and low pressure. There are 13 gas
distribution points installed on the territory of the settlement.
Heat supply to the residential sector and public buildings is
provided by the existing boiler house with a capacity of 12 Gcal/h. Fuel
is natural gas. The length of the main heating networks is 21.5 km. The
state of the networks is satisfactory. Some objects are provided with
heat from their own boiler houses (fuel - natural gas) with a total
capacity of 8.6 Gcal/h.
There are four kindergartens in Myshkin (“Teremok”, “Rosinka”, “Petushok”, “Topolek”), a general education school, three institutions of additional education - the Children's School of Arts, the Children's and Youth Sports School and the House of Children's Creativity, as well as an institution of secondary vocational education - Myshkinsky Polytechnic College of the Yaroslavl Region.
The Yaroslavl branch of FSUE RTRS provides reception
of the first and second multiplexes of digital terrestrial television in
Russia in the city (reception from the village of Volga and the city of
Uglich, 21 and 57 TVK).
The only mass media in the district is
the Volga Zori newspaper.
In the zero years in Myshkin there was
a radio channel "Myshkin Says".