If we have heard a lot about Atlantis absorbed by the water element, few know about the Russian city of Mologa. Despite the fact that the latter can even be seen: twice a year the level of the Rybinsk reservoir falls - and this ghost town appears.
INTERVAL
From time immemorial, this place was called the fabulous interfluve. Nature itself has taken care of making the vast space at the confluence of the Mologa River with the Volga not only very beautiful, but also abundant.
In the spring, the water flooded the meadows, supplying them with moisture for the whole summer and bringing in nutritious silt - lush grass grew. It is not surprising that the cows gave excellent milk, from which they obtained the best butter in Russia and delicious cheese. The saying “Rivers of milk and cheese banks” is about Mologa.
The navigable river Mologa - wide at its mouth (over 250 m), with crystal clear water - was famous throughout Russia for its fish: sterlet, sturgeon and other valuable varieties. It was the local fishermen who were the main suppliers to the imperial table. By the way, this circumstance played a decisive role in the appearance in 1777 of the decree of Catherine II on assigning the status of a city to Mologa. Although at that time there were only about 300 households.
A favorable climate (even epidemics bypassed the region), convenient transport links and the fact that wars did not reach Mologa - all this contributed to the prosperity of the city until the beginning of the 20th century. Both economically (12 factories were operating in the city) and socially.
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By 1900, with a population of seven thousand, Mologa had a gymnasium and eight more educational institutions, three libraries, as well as a cinema, a bank, a post office with a telegraph, a zemstvo hospital and a city hospital.
Memorial sign at the site where the Epiphany Cathedral stood. Every year on the second Saturday of August, Mologzans meet at this sign
The hard times of the Civil War of 1917-1922 only partially affected the city: the new government also needed products and their processing, which provided employment for the population. In 1931, a machine-tractor station and a seed-growing collective farm were organized in Mologa, and a technical school was opened.
A year later, an industrial plant appeared, which united a power plant, a starch and oil mill, and a mill. There were already over 900 houses in the city, 200 shops and shops were involved in trade.
Everything changed when the country was swept by a wave of electrification: the number of coveted megawatts became the main goal, for which all means were good.
ROCKY 4 METERS
Today, every now and then you hear about the rise in the level of the World Ocean and the threat of flooding of coastal cities, and even countries. Such horror stories are perceived as something detached: they say, it can happen, but it will never happen. In any case, not during our lifetime. And in general, it is difficult to imagine this very rise of the water by several meters …
In 1935, the inhabitants of Mologa - then the regional center of the Yaroslavl region - initially also did not represent the entirety of the impending danger. Although, of course, they were informed of the decree of the USSR government issued in September on the construction of the Rybinsk reservoir. But the level of water rise in the project was declared as 98 m, and the city of Mologa was located at an altitude of 100 m - safety is guaranteed.
But then, without much ado, the designers, at the suggestion of economists, made an amendment. According to their calculations, if the water level is raised by only 4 m - from 98 to 102, then the capacity of the Rybinsk hydroelectric power station under construction will increase from 220 to 340 MW. Even the fact that the flooded area was simultaneously doubled did not stop. The immediate benefit decided the fate of Mologa and hundreds of nearby villages.
However, the alarm bell sounded back in 1929 in the famous Afanasyevsky monastery, founded in the 15th century. It was adjacent to Molotaya and was rightfully considered one of the most magnificent monuments of Russian Orthodox architecture.
In addition to four churches, the monastery also kept a miraculous relic - a copy of the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God. It was with her in 1321 that the first prince of Mologa, Mikhail Davidovich, arrived in his estate - he inherited the lands after the death of his father, Prince David of Yaroslavl.
So, in 1929 the authorities removed the icon from the monastery and transferred it to the Mologa district museum. The priests took this as a bad omen. Indeed, soon the Afanasyevsky monastery was transformed into a labor commune - the last service was held here on January 3, 1930.
A few months later, the icon was requisitioned from the museum - for the representatives of the new government, it was now listed only as "an object containing non-ferrous metal." Since then, the traces of the relic were lost, and Mologa was left without saint patronage. And the disaster was not long in coming …
THE CHOICE FOR THE DISSENT
Residents of Mologa wrote letters to various authorities with a request to lower the water level and leave the city, they presented their arguments, including economic ones. In vain!
Moreover, in the fall of 1936, an obviously impracticable order was received from Moscow: to relocate 60% of the residents of Mologda before the new year. They managed to win the winter, but in the spring the townspeople began to be taken out, and the process stretched out for four years until the flooding began in April 1941.
In total, according to the plan for the construction of the Rybinsk and Uglich hydroelectric complexes, over 130 thousand residents were forcibly evicted from the Molo-Sheksninsky interfluve. Besides Mologa, they lived in 700 villages and hamlets. Most of them were sent to Rybinsk and the neighboring districts of the region, and the most qualified specialists were sent to Yaroslavl, Leningrad and Moscow. Those who actively resisted and campaigned to stay were exiled to Volgolag - a huge construction site needed workers.
And yet there were those who stood their ground and did not leave Mologa. In the report, the head of the local department of the Volgolag camp, Lieutenant of the State Security Sklyarov, reported to his superiors that the number of “citizens who voluntarily wished to die with their belongings when filling the reservoir was 294 people …
Among them were those who firmly attached themselves with locks … to deaf objects. Such authorities officially recognized suffering from nervous disorders, and that's the end of it: they died in the flooding.
Sappers blew up tall buildings - this was a hindrance to future shipping. The Epiphany Cathedral survived after the first explosion; the explosives had to be planted four more times to turn the rebellious Orthodox monument into ruins.
DELETE FROM BIOGRAPHY
Subsequently, the very mention of Mologa was banned - as if such a land did not exist. The reservoir reached its design mark of 102 m only in 1947, and before that the city was slowly disappearing under water.
There were several cases when the resettled Mologzhanians came to the shore of the Rybinsk reservoir and with their whole families passed away - they committed suicide, unable to bear the separation from their small homeland.
Only 20 years later, the residents of Mologda were able to arrange meetings of their fellow countrymen - the first took place in 1960 near Leningrad.
Houses were rolled onto logs, floated into rafts and floated down the river to a new place
In 1972, the level of the Rybinsk reservoir dropped noticeably - at last there was an opportunity to walk along the Mologa. Several families of Mologzhan arrived to determine their streets by sawed-down trees and telegraph poles, found the foundations of houses, and at the cemetery on tombstones - the burials of relatives.
Soon after that, in Rybinsk, a meeting of mologzhan was held, which became an annual meeting - fellow countrymen from other regions of Russia and neighboring countries come to it.
… Twice a year, flowers appear at the Mologa city cemetery - they are brought by people whose relatives, by the will of fate, were buried not only in the ground, but also under a layer of water. There is also a homemade stele with the inscription: "Sorry, city of Mologa." Below - "14 m": this is the maximum water level above the ruins of the ghost town. The descendants keep the memory of their small homeland, which means that Mologa is still alive …
Nikolay ZENITSA, the magazine "Steps of the Oracle" No. 21, 2016