RUSSIAN ATLANTIS
Mologa is the capital of Russian Atlantis and a ghost town that disappeared more than 60 years ago. From time to time its ruins appear and disappear at the bottom of the Rybinsk Reservoir. The first mention of the town of Mologa was made in 1149. And at the beginning of XX century there were about 900 houses in the town with the population of more than 5000 people. There were 2 cathedrals and 3 churches in Mologa. Not far from the town there was a female Afanasyevsky monastery. Also in the town there were libraries, schools, gymnasiums, telegraph, post office, cinema, hospital, ambulatory, pharmacy and industrial enterprises, such as a brick factory, a chemical plant for the production of berry extracts, a boneyard, and a glue factory. The unique flood meadows and pastures were considered the trademark of the region.The Soviet Union's industrialization of the 1930s and the "construction of the century" that came with it destroyed and swallowed up Mologa. As a result of the creation of the Rybinsk hydroelectric power plant and a huge reservoir, 4,550 square kilometers were flooded, the town of Mologa, 700 villages and hamlets were destroyed, churches were blown up, and thousands of people were expelled from their homeland.
Another tragic history of this place is the "Volgolag" labor camp. It was the prisoners of this camp, created in the 30s in the village of Perebori, became the main labor force that made Rybinsk "construction of the century". Rybinsk man-made sea is a living monument to the victims of "Volgolag" and a reminder of Stalin's regime, the Gulag system, which only by the end of the XX century was recognized as a crime against the people. Most of the displaced people found their new homeland in Rybinsk city. Many streets in the city are named in memory of Mologa town and villages. In Rybinsk there is a small museum, which preserves the memory of the Mologa land and its history.