Many peoples have a legend about their Atlantis. Whose attention will not be attracted by a colorful story about a mysterious ghost town flooded in ancient times, which disappeared, taking with it into the abyss streets, houses, temples, people, animals? A terrible catastrophe for those times for our contemporaries became an interesting historical riddle, a secret that we want to investigate and reveal.
As a rule, it was these ghost towns in the eyes of all mankind that personified the ideal of a joyful, happy and serene life. True, these cities were always threatened with destruction. The authors of poetic legends did not know how to dispose of their further fate, therefore, most often they sent their myth cities to the bottom of the seas and oceans. But often the legends about the disappeared cities had quite good reasons for them to be interested and scientists began their research. In this regard, it is enough to recall the history of the famous Sodom and Gomorrah, possibly resting under a thick layer of silt and volcanic ash at the bottom of the Dead Sea. Or accidentally discovered Pompeii with Herculaneum, covered with the ash and lava of Vesuvius. And for Russia it is the mysterious city of Kitezh.
Some ports and thriving cities of antiquity were destroyed not as a result of their sinking to the bottom of the sea, but, on the contrary, as a result of moving away from it. Such a fate befell, for example, the Turkish city of Ephesus, the ruins of which are today south of Izmir. About two and a half thousand years ago, the Menderes River, flowing into the sea, almost buried the city with its sediments of silt. From it only the road has survived, which ends four kilometers from the sea.
The North Germans did not lag behind the Italians, Greeks, Slavs. They also wanted to have their own fabulous ghost town, once located on the shores of the Baltic Sea. But where did it disappear, if it ever existed? As far as we know, in those areas in the foreseeable past there have never been volcanoes, and there have not been any known strong earthquakes. Floods, however, did happen, but all the cities remained in their places. The elements, as a rule, receded after several days of revelry.
And nevertheless, some scientists from Berlin today quite seriously argue that in the Middle Ages on the coast of the Baltic Sea (not far from Wolin Island), at the confluence of the Oder River into the sea, there was a large port city of Vineta. He is listed in all the encyclopedias of the world, but very little is known about him.
Chronicles briefly report that about seven hundred years ago (before the ruin in the XII century by the Danes) Vineta was the largest trade center of the German north. Trade flourished in the city, ships from all over the world moored in the port. The scale of its activity was in many ways reminiscent of medieval Hamburg and Lubeck. But these two cities are still alive today, nothing happened to them, except for rare floods, but Vineta completely disappeared. Where and how?
Archaeologists from the land of Mecklenburg-Predpomerania are sure that the legendary city is not an invention, it really existed. And today it lies at the bottom of the Barthetsky Bay, not far from the small ancient town of Barth, mentioned in the chronicles of the 13th century. Getting to Vineta is not easy, as it is covered with a multi-meter layer of silt.
Ancient legends describe this mysterious city as follows:
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“The luxurious houses in it were decorated with colored glass windows.
Columns of white marble and alabaster supported the awnings over the entrances to the dwelling. The gilded tiles reflected the sunlight and filled the streets with a yellow glow until sunset.
The men in Vineta wore robes trimmed with expensive fur and berets with long feathers. The women were draped in velvet and silk, heavy gold jewelry with huge precious stones wrapped around their necks. The girls were spinning on small spinning wheels with a golden spindle. They drank wine there from golden goblets, and the holes in the walls were plugged with bread."
In this story, very much reminds of what Plato wrote about Atlantis: admiration for a beautiful city, rich and contented people. And as a punishment - the same disappearance in the depths of sea waters, disappearance into eternity. And since this description cannot be verified, every chronograph tried in its own way. Here is what was reported about Vinet in the Russian encyclopedic dictionary of F. A. Brockhaus and I. A. Efron: “Vineta, otherwise it was called Yulin or Yumna, in the X and XI centuries a lively Slavic city, was located on the island of Voline at the mouth of the Oder. Adam Bremen (1067) describes Vineta as one of the largest seaside towns on the Baltic coast. Not far from Vineta, on the Silver Mountain, there was the fortification of the Scandinavian Vikings Iomsburg. In 1184, in the war between the Danish king Knut VI and the Pomeranian Duke Boguslav Vineta, it was burned and destroyed by the Danes. Later, a legend was formed that as a result of an earthquake, the city sank into the sea, where you can see its ruins. The latest research (Virchow and Friedel) did not confirm this and proved that Vineta was located on the site of the present city of Wallin."
And here is what the German geographer Adam of Bremen himself wrote about Vineth, who called it Yumna: “The city is full of goods from all the peoples of the North. It is bigger and more beautiful than any other city in Europe. Vineta is overrun by barbarians, Greeks, Slavs and Saxons. Sailors, merchants, artisans - everyone is welcomed here. But only if they do not profess Christianity. Because everyone here is deluded and worships pagan idols."
So did this blessed city exist or did not exist? And if it did exist, where did it disappear to? What preceded the trouble?
The modern Berlin historian Ponter Vermusch believes that Vineta is not the city of Wolin. We are talking about Vinet, which existed and perished as a result of the floods that periodically flood the lands of Holland. “The inhabitants of Vineta blocked today's bay with dams and sluices that protected them from the destructive effects of sea waves. They were the first who began to protect themselves from the rampant sea elements. But the conquerors who came, the Danish warriors, destroyed all these dams. They did not want to preserve the beautiful free city, which, together with its inhabitants, made them envy. And in order to hide the act of their hands and annoy the inhabitants, they decided that Vineta should perish. It was they who destroyed the sluices and dams. And the water poured into the streets of the city. In other words, they acted on the principle: "Carthage must be destroyed" - and it was destroyed. And a century after the flooding of Vineta, the merchants noted that they saw the roofs and spiers of the city under the water”.
Vineta's whereabouts are still debated. According to the description of Adam of Bremen, the city could be located near the island of Rügen at the mouth of the Pene river. Historians could have confused the names of cities, Vineta was later called Volin. But be that as it may, the researchers plan to soon check the old outlines and direction of the Pene River in order to start searching for the disappeared city. If they manage to find even the slightest trace of a flooded ancient city, then it will be a truly scientific sensation. Not a single ghost town has surfaced yet. Perhaps Vineta will take the lead in this.
HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS. N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev