Rybinsk Museum-Reserve

The building is made of brick, and the exterior is lined with German tiles. More than two hundred colored tiles depicting double-headed eagles, beads, herbs, and flowers were used in its decoration, which gives the building an amazing beauty. The building is also distinguished by its extraordinary strength, because in order to withstand the ice and spring floods, its foundation of rubble stone was immersed in the ground for four meters. The construction of the new "bread exchange" demonstrated to the whole of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century the wealth, strength and power of the Rybinsk merchants. Industrialists and merchants from the White Sea to the Caspian Sea gathered here.

Now the building houses the Rybinsk State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, one of the largest museums in the Upper Volga. It is located in an outstanding architectural monument of the early twentieth century – the historic building of the New Grain Exchange. Currently, the collection of the Rybinsk Museum has about 120 thousand exhibits and is very diverse. Russian and foreign paintings and graphics, including entire family portrait galleries. Furniture, weapons, porcelain, glass, bronze, where it is sometimes difficult to distinguish a household item from a work of art. The museum's expositions tell about the history of the rich trading city, about visiting it in 1767. Catherine the Great, about the work of boatmen, about merchants known throughout the Volga region, about the fate of prominent representatives of the nobility and their magnificent estates.

Russian art is represented by the works of famous masters of the XVIII – early XX centuries: I.Ya. Vishnyakov, I.K. Aivazovsky, I.I. Shishkin, Z.E. Serebryakova, N.K. Roerich. The portrait gallery of Counts Musin-Pushkin is almost completely shown, in which the works of F.S. Rokotov are juxtaposed with the creations of unknown serf talents. In the applied art section of the XVIII – XIX centuries: Gzhel majolica, tableware and porcelain figurines, glass damask and cups.

The fine art funds operate in open storage mode, and the works of Russian and foreign artists are presented to visitors.

In 1990, in order to perpetuate the memory of the famous physiologist and philosopher academician A.A. Ukhtomsky, a memorial house museum was opened in which the future scientist spent his childhood and adolescence. The museum consists of 5 exhibition halls, which reflect all the main stages of the life of A.A. Ukhtomsky (1875-1942).

The museum's exposition tells about the history of the ancient family of the Ukhtomsky princes. The interior of the living room has been restored based on the scientist's childhood memories. The academic's office at the Physiological Research Institute in St. Petersburg has been recreated in one of the rooms. The museum introduces the scientific works of A.A. Ukhtomsky, the principle of dominance, which anticipated the discovery of humanistic psychology, and developments in the field of social, moral, ethical, and religious issues.

In 1995, the museum of the Mologa Region was opened in the former chapel of the Afanasievsky Convent. The main exhibition is dedicated to the natural, cultural and historical heritage of the Mologo-Sheksninsky interfluve, which was flooded in the 1930s as a result of the creation of the Rybinsk reservoir.

The city of Mologa was first mentioned in the chronicle in 1149. Among the spiritual and cultural centers of the Mologa region: monasteries – Afanasyevsky and Yugsko-Dorofeevsky, churches, noble estates, including A.I. Musin-Pushkin, the famous statesman, the discoverer of the "Words about Igor's Regiment."