Myshkin Mouse Town

Myshkin sounds like the Russian word for mouse, and the town leaned into it: from the 1990s it built a mouse museum, then a mouse palace, then a run of small museums along the hill above the Volga, and turned itself into a scheduled stop for the cruise boats that go between Moscow and St Petersburg. The mouse content is frankly aimed at children and cruise passengers. What is more interesting is the rest, because the same energy produced a genuinely good collection of unusual small museums: valenki felt boots, flax and linen working, a smithy, a large collection of retired machinery and vehicles gathered by local enthusiasts, and an ethnographic yard of relocated wooden buildings. The town itself is a merchant settlement of about six thousand people with an 1820s cathedral and wooden streets, and it is worth an hour on its own once the boats have left.

What you actually see

• The mouse museums - a collection built entirely on a pun, aimed at cruise groups.
• The machinery yard - retired vehicles and engines gathered by local collectors.
• The valenki and flax museums - small collections on felt boots and linen work.
• The merchant town - wooden streets and an 1820s cathedral above the Volga.

When to go

May to September, when the ferry and cruise boats run. Half a day, ideally not while a cruise ship is in.

Honest expectations

When a cruise boat docks the town is overwhelmed for two hours and museums run on a conveyor. Each museum is a separate small ticket. The mouse theme is thin if you are not travelling with children. The ferry is weather-dependent and there is no bridge.

Nearby

Uglich is upriver; the Volga runs past the town.