The skein module of a 3-manifold is defined as the collection of all links in the manifold modulo the HOMFLY skein relations. My talk will be about interesting algebras arising as skein modules of thickenings of Riemann surfaces. I will explain how to compute these algebras and how they are related to various Hecke algebras from representation theory and combinatorics. As an application,I will show how these algebras compute Khovanov-Rozansky homology of torus knots.