Mologa. Why is the secret of the flooded city hidden under the heading "Top Secret"? Central Russia

In the Yaroslavl region, on the Rybinsk reservoir, the buildings of the city of Mologa appeared from the water, which was flooded in 1940 during the construction of a hydroelectric power station. Now there is low water in the region, the water has gone and exposed entire streets: the foundations of houses, the walls of churches and other city buildings are visible.

Disappeared from the face of the earth more than 50 years ago, the city of Mologa in the Yaroslavl region again appeared above the surface of the water as a result of low water that came to the region, ITAR-TASS reports. It was flooded in 1940 during the construction of a hydroelectric power station on the Rybinsk reservoir.

Former residents of the city came to the banks of the reservoir to observe an unusual phenomenon. They said that the foundations of houses and the contours of streets appeared from the water. Mologa residents are going to visit their former homes. Their children and grandchildren are planning to swim to the ruins of the city on the motor ship Moskovsky-7 in order to walk around their native land.

“We go to visit the flooded city every year. Usually we put flowers and wreaths into the water, and the priests serve a prayer service on the ship, but this year there is a unique opportunity to set foot on land,” said Valentin Blatov, chairman of the Mologzhan Community NGO.

Today, few remember that there is a flooded city of Mologa in Russia, which was sacrificed to civilization and electrification of the country. In our time, even such formations as cities with a population of many thousands and developed infrastructure are born, live and die.

Among these dead cities is a provincial small town, which was previously located not far from. For his tragic fate, the people call him Russian Atlantis.

For the first time, the Mologa River is mentioned in the annals of 1149. They say that “... in battles with the Grand Duke Yuri Dolgoruky, Prince Mstislavich burned down all the villages on his way to Mologa ...” The city with the same name was already flooded in the 20th century by the will of people and circumstances.

History of Mologa

As a place already inhabited by people, Mologa is mentioned in the records of the 13th century - fairs were held here, famous for many miles around. Many foreigners - Greeks, Lithuanians, Poles, Germans brought their goods here to exchange them for raw materials. Various furs were in great demand. The city grew, expanded, and the number of its inhabitants grew.

In the 17th century, there were 125 houses in Mologa. Of these, 12 belonged to fishermen who caught various fish in the Volga and Mologa, and even red. And then, among other things, they delivered it to the royal table.

By the end of the 18th century, there was a town hall, 3 churches - 2 stone and one wooden - and 289 wooden houses on the city territory. In 1767, in the traditions of Russian architecture, the Resurrection Cathedral was erected.

The majestic Afanasevsky Monastery flaunted near the city.

At the same time, the city received its coat of arms, which depicted a bear with an axe.

In the 19th century, Mologa was already a small port city - many ships loaded and unloaded various goods there. There were 11 factories in the city, there was a bank, a post office, a telegraph office, a monastery, churches, libraries, and educational institutions.

A gymnastic school, one of the first in Russia, was also opened here. In it, those who wished were taught fencing, playing skittles, riding a bicycle, and were taught carpentry. About 6000 people lived in the city.

In the 20th century, the city's population increased to 7,000 people. There were 9 educational institutions, 6 cathedrals and churches, many plants and factories.

Mesopotamia

The location of the city of Mologa was initially very successful: in the Mologo-Sheksna lowland. The Volga River had a U-turn here and flowed further towards Rybinsk.

And in the interfluve between the Mologa and Sheksna rivers there were water meadows, which at that time fed the 3rd part of all of Russia. Bread, milk, sour cream - all these products were supplied in huge quantities to different parts of the country.

Terrifying news spread around the city

Potential flood zone

Life went on as usual without any special events and disasters. But in 1935 the Government of the country decided to build the Rybinsk and Uglich hydroelectric stations.

To implement these grandiose plans, it was necessary to build dams and flood a vast territory: approximately the same as the country of Luxembourg occupies.

The city of Mologa stood on a hill and was not originally part of the flood zone. According to engineering calculations, the water level was assumed to be 98 meters above sea level, and the city stood 2 meters higher.

Government changes plans

But plans "above" have changed. The country was preparing for war with Germany. Additional powerful energy resources were needed. That is why at the beginning of 1937 it was decided to raise the level of the reservoir to 102 meters, and hence to flood the Mologa.

Almost doubling the area of ​​the future man-made reservoir increased the capacity of the hydroelectric power plant by 130 megawatts. This figure cost the lives of 700 villages and the city of Mologa with 800 years of history, hundreds of villages surrounding it with beautiful forests, fertile fields and arable land.

The life of the city and its inhabitants turned into a nightmare. 6 ancient monasteries and many churches were to be destroyed.

And, most importantly, people. More than 150 thousand people had to leave their habitable places. Places where their ancestors once lived and were buried. Ride into the unknown.

Since the flooding of Mologa was not planned from the beginning, for the young people the news of the upcoming event was like "thunder in the sky." Residents prepared for the winter, stocked up hay for livestock, firewood for heating. And around October 30, unexpected news came: we urgently need to move.

Pain and despair of the Mologa people

Before the start of construction, a separate Volgolag camp was created to carry out the planned work, in which there were 20 thousand prisoners. And this number is growing every day.

Preparatory work began - centuries-old trees were cut down, ancient churches were blown up - everything that could interfere with further navigation was destroyed. With pain, the inhabitants of the city watched how buildings were destroyed, temples exploded.

The story of how the Cathedral of the Epiphany was destroyed has been preserved. The majestic building, which was built to last for centuries, after the first explosion with dynamite, only rose to a small height in the air and fell back into place without damage. I had to make 4 more attempts to finally destroy the century-old structure.

It's time for people to move. This went on for four years. How much pain, fear and sadness these long four years have brought with them to the families of migrants! Houses were dismantled by logs, numbered to make it easier to assemble later and transported on horse carts, some floated them down the river along with things. In villages close to Rybinsk, you can still see old houses with numbers on the logs of log cabins.

The owners of the houses were paid meager monetary compensation, which was barely enough to pay for the demolition of the house. And lonely, sick people were distributed to the homes of the disabled located nearby.

There were also those who, not wanting to leave, chained themselves to some heavy object in the yard of their house.

According to the surviving data, 294 people refused to leave their homes. Popular rumor conveys terrible stories that these people voluntarily remained in their homes and were buried alive under the water.

But eyewitnesses of those events say that these are all fictions. The authorities acted very simply: they recognized these people as crazy and by force they took them out of the danger zone of the upcoming flood, sending them to psychiatric hospitals.

By the way, the authenticity of the Report given here is questioned. In the archives of the Rybinsk Museum, dedicated to the History of the tragedy of Mologa, such a document does not appear.

Very gradually the city of Mologa was under water. In the famous film "Mologa. Russian Atlantis ”it is shown that the water surged sharply, and in a few hours the city went under water. But this is a work of art. After all, the depth of flooding was very small: no more than 2 meters.

And on April 14, 1941, they dug up the last opening of the dam. The restless waters of three rivers: the Volga, the Mologa and the Sheksna met the resistance of the dams on their way and overflowed their banks. The vast expanse of land began to gradually fill with water, forming a majestic sea created by man. This is how the well-known Rybinsk reservoir appeared.

In memory of human tragedy

As a result of the flooding of the Mologo-Sheksna interfluve, the 8th part of the Yaroslavl lands disappeared from the face of the earth. More than 800 settlements, 6 monasteries and 50 churches were under water.

On the above map of the Rybinsk Reservoir (it can be enlarged), the channels of the former rivers are marked in dark blue, and next to them, red dots are villages and villages that have gone under water forever.

Surprisingly, the Volga in those days was not considered the Great River and was not even navigable. It is known that steamboats sailed only on the Rybinsk-Mologa interval.

Decades have passed since the tragedy. The Soviet people defeated Germany in the Great Patriotic War. As historians say, the capacities of the created Volga hydroelectric power stations played an important role in this event.

Gradually, the history of Russian Atlantis was forgotten. In addition, for many years in the Soviet Union it was forbidden even to pronounce this name: Mologa. For such a mention, one could easily fall into some camp.

Years passed. There were periods when the water level in the Rybinsk reservoir dropped, and one could see the remains of the ancient city: the foundations of former houses and streets, cemetery tombstones.

But the elements of water, wind and time do their job. And already in the 21st century, little is reminiscent of the former tragedy. The remains of many churches and temples, not destroyed by flooding, which previously towered above the surface of the water, almost completely went under water.

Many historical cities have survived, but due to partial flooding, they have become much smaller. The ancient city of Vesyegonsk decreased by 3/4, the flooding affected Uglich, Myshkin, Kalyazin.

Kalyazinsky bell tower

Many cities, towns and villages went under water at the same time. Among them, the infamous city was also partially damaged. The Nikolsky Cathedral located there was built in 1694.

Under him, since 1800, a five-tiered bell tower has risen. Its height is 74.5 meters. There were 12 bells in the belfry! The largest of them was cast in honor of Nicholas II, who became Emperor.

During the preparation of these lands for flooding, the cathedral was dismantled, and the bell tower was left as a lighthouse for ships. In the eighties, its foundation was strengthened, an artificial island of land was created around it, and now divine services and prayers are held there in the summer.

For visiting tourists, an original attraction has appeared. Well, for the residents of Kalyazin - a good reason to earn some extra money by taking travelers to.

People's memory

Now, according to a sad tradition, on one of August Sundays, the descendants of those who once lived in Mologa gather in and sail on a ship to the place of the sunken city. Sometimes the water level drops and the city appears out of the water. The spectacle is not for the faint of heart, it just becomes scary. After all, once people lived there - they were sad and laughed, dreamed and hoped for a happy future ...

Although, according to today's researchers, almost nothing is left of those times. All the stories that you can see ancient buildings, temples and tombstones and crosses under water are a myth. Only stones and shell rock are visible at the bottom. Only occasionally do searchers find small metal items and coins.

Do not forget that almost all stone buildings were blown up before flooding, and wooden buildings were dismantled for firewood.

On the site of the flooded city, enthusiasts erected a symbolic monument-pointer with the inscription: "Forgive me, the city of Mologa." And his arrow is directed under the water.

Where to learn about the history of the flooding of Mologa

In Rybinsk there is a museum of the Mologa region, where you can learn in detail about these events, see objects of that time and light a candle in memory of the inhabitants of Mologa. It is located in Preobrazhensky lane, house 6 a. Open from 10 am to 5 pm except Monday and Sunday.

And in the city of Myshkin, which was also partially affected, but the built dams saved it from complete flooding, there is. It is located on Nikolskaya Square, building 5. The curator of this museum, a local historian, can also tell a lot about the flooded cities, in particular, about Mologa.

We were deeply moved by the story of the curator of the museum, Sergei Vasilyevich Kurov, about the history of the Volga region, about how the preparations for the flood were carried out. He preserved the memories of eyewitnesses of these events and their descendants.

Also in his collection are many things that in previous years he was able to find in the area of ​​the flooded city. Here, for example, is a brick from Russian Atlantis.

And it was also very interesting to see this whole story on ordinary geographical maps of those years. Here we have an edition of the late 30s of the 20th century.

The lowlands are clearly visible here. And this area is circled with a dotted line as a possible object, which is planned to be flooded in the future. On the map of 1938, the inscription is visible: the zone of the alleged flooding.

And next to it is a more modern map with the Rybinsk reservoir. Its outlines surprisingly repeat the contours of the former fertile lowland.

Mologa - the pearl of Russia

There can be no unambiguous assessment of these tragic events. After all, we must not forget that it was this newly created Rybinsk reservoir that in 1941 provided electricity to all of Moscow, as well as numerous factories that produced weapons and equipment for the front.

By the beginning of the war, the building of the hydroelectric power station was already ready, only the roof had not yet been built. It was replaced with a tarpaulin and, despite the fighting, the work continued. The country, the people needed this additional power plant. Only - at what cost? - that's another question...

This is where the flooded city of Mologa is now located on a modern map.

Other sights of the Yaroslavl region, where I managed to visit, are on this map.

Perhaps the assertion is not so far from the truth that a Russian person most often lives in his past, rather than in his present or future, a member of the Writers' Union of Russia once wrote. Boris Sudarushkin in his magazine "Rus". He wrote this in connection with the eternal theme for Rybinsk of the flooding of the Mologa during the construction of the Rybinsk reservoir. It seems that everything that can be said about the era of the great construction projects of communism has been said about the death of Mologa. Russian Atlantis, a ghost town, a dead city, a hidden page of Russian tragedy - no matter how they call Mologa in literature. Despite such a wide popularity of this story, there are no unambiguous assessments of the events of the first half of the 20th century. And obviously it won't.

Story

In a local history monograph Peter of Crete"Our region. Yaroslavl province. The Experience of Rodnovery, published in 1907, describes the history of Mologa as follows:

“As a populated place, Mologa was mentioned in the 13th century... Germans, Lithuanians, Greeks, Armenians, Persians, Italians came here to trade... Visiting merchants exchanged their goods here for raw, mainly for furs. As early as the end of the 16th century, the fair at Kholopy was considered the most important in Russia; later its value began to fall. At the beginning of the 17th century, the inhabitants of Mologa suffered a lot from the Cossacks, Poles and Lithuanians (especially in 1609 and 1617).”

The time of settlement of the area where the city of Mologa was located is unknown. In the annals, the mention of the Mologa River is first found in 1149, when the Grand Duke of Kiev Izyaslav Mstislavich, fighting with the Prince of Suzdal and Rostov Yuri Dolgoruky, burned all the villages along the Volga to Mologa itself. In 1321, the Molozhsky principality appeared, which during the reign of Ivan III became part of Moscow.

From the inventory compiled between 1676 and 1678 by the stolnik Samarin and the clerk Rusinov, it follows that Mologa was at that time a palace settlement, there were 125 courtyards, including 12 owned by fishermen who, together with the fishermen of the Rybnaya Sloboda, fished in the Volga and Mologa red fish, delivering annually to the royal table three sturgeon, 10 white fish, 100 sterlet.

In the late 1760s, Mologa belonged to the Uglich province of the Moscow province, had a town hall, two stone and one wooden parish churches, 289 wooden houses. In 1777, the ancient palace settlement of Mologa received the status of a county town and was added to the Yaroslavl province. The emblem of the city of Mologa was approved on July 20, 1778. In the complete collection of laws, it is described as follows: Shield in a silver field; the third part of this shield contains the coat of arms of the Yaroslavl viceroy (a bear with an ax on its hind legs); in two parts of that shield, a part of an earthen rampart is shown in an azure field, it is trimmed with a silver border, or a white stone».

At the end of the 19th century, Mologa was a small town that came to life during the loading of ships, and then plunged into the rather boring life of county towns. From Mologa began the Tikhvin water system, one of the three connecting the Caspian and Baltic Seas. More than 300 ships were loaded annually with grain and other goods at the city's pier, and almost the same number of ships were unloaded.

There were 11 factories in Mologa, including a distillery, a bone-grinding, glue-making and brick factory, a plant for the production of berry extracts. There was a monastery, several churches, a treasury, a bank, a telegraph office, a post office and a cinema.

The city had three libraries, nine educational institutions, two parochial schools - one for boys, the other for girls, the Alexander Orphanage, one of the first gymnastic schools in Russia, which taught bowling, fencing, cycling, and carpentry. skill.

Soviet power in the city was established on December 15, 1917. Adherents of the Provisional Government did not particularly resist, so no blood was shed.

In 1931, a machine and tractor station was organized in Mologa. The following year, a zonal seed-growing station and an industrial plant were opened. In the 1930s, there were more than 900 houses in the city, of which about a hundred were made of stone, and almost seven thousand people lived here.

The coming resettlement was announced to the Mologa residents in the fall of 1936. The authorities decided to relocate more than half of the city's residents and remove their homes before the end of the year. It was not possible to fulfill the plan - the resettlement of residents began in the spring of 1937 and lasted four years.

On the lands sentenced to flooding, there were 408 collective farms, 46 rural hospitals, 224 schools, 258 industrial enterprises.

According to official figures, about 300 people refused to leave their homes during the resettlement. In the report of the head of the Mologa branch of the Volgolag camp, Lieutenant of State Security Sklyarov: “In addition to the report I submitted earlier, I report that there are 294 people who voluntarily wished to die with their belongings when filling the reservoir ...”

The city finally disappeared in 1947 when the filling of the Rybinsk reservoir was completed.

Big Volga

April 1, 1936 in the newspaper "Severny Rabochiy" under the heading "Big Volga" was published an interview with the head of Volgostroy Yakov Rapoport. The interview is provided with the following editorial introduction:

“There are no fortresses that the Bolsheviks could not take. How long has it been a dream to build Dneprostroy, Kuznetskstroy, the Moscow metro and many other equally grandiose problems? The dream has come true. Dozens of industrial giants have entered into operation operating enterprises. Under the leadership of the great architect of socialism, Comrade Stalin, our country is solving tremendous problems. One of these problems is the Big Volga.

Rapoport explained what the Great Volga is: to connect the Volga route with the Dnieper through the Oka and the tributaries of the Dnieper, to connect the Volga with the Black, Azov and Caspian Seas with a single waterway: “ Connecting rivers and seas, the hands of the Bolsheviks reach the Arctic Ocean. The Belomorsky Canal plus the extended Mariinsky system, plus the Volga-Moscow canal will make it possible to connect the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean with the southern seas».

Almost all of these promises have been fulfilled. Rapoport kept silent about only one thing - that all this gigantic work was carried out by the labor of thousands of Gulag prisoners.

The most interesting thing in Rapoport's interview is information about the first option for building a power plant on the Volga near Yaroslavl, which provided for the flooding of the city of Uglich. The second option, with the flooding of Mologa, was sent personally by a group of young engineers to Stalin. By that time, all calculations for the Yaroslavl hydroelectric power station had been completed, and its construction had already begun. It is not difficult to imagine how the authors of the second version felt, waiting for a response from the Kremlin - at that time it was easy to fall into the category of enemies of the people for such an initiative. However, this time it happened differently. Here is how Rapoport spoke about it:

"With the usual comrade Stalin sensitivity, he was attentive to the project of young engineers. On his initiative, a secondary examination was carried out, which confirmed the validity and huge advantage of the new project.”

With all the sympathy for the fate of Mologa, Sudarushkin believes that the flooding of Uglich would have even more tragic consequences for the history and culture of Russia. But that's not all - according to the first project, flooding also threatened Rybinsk! At least, Rapoport spoke about this, having a good idea of ​​​​the situation of that time.

A more real story of the beginning of the construction of the Rybinsk reservoir, however, also without mentioning the thousands of prisoners of the Volgolag, was presented in the book “ man-made sea» Serafim Tachalov, who personally participated in the construction of the Rybinsk hydroelectric complex: “I still remember how rafts of settlers float along Mologa, Sheksna and Yana. On rafts - household utensils, cattle, huts. And then the author cites a conversation with a displaced woman: “After all, happiness, my dear, lives not only in the parental home. I think it won't be worse in the new place. Our places are unenviable - every spring floods overcame. The underground is almost always in the water, so there is nowhere to store supplies. You need to go to the store - get on the boat. Cattle mooing in the wind. They didn’t take their eyes off the guys - they’ll drown ... And the harvest itself was two or three, there wasn’t enough of their own bread until Easter. You fight, you fight, but there is little sense.

water grave

In 1991, the Verkhne-Volzhsky book publishing house, where Man-Made Sea appeared ten years earlier, published the book Yuri Nesterov « Mologa - memory and pain”, in which the history of the emergence of the Rybinsk reservoir is presented in a tragic light.

The next year after the publication of the book, the author died, in the newspaper "Rybinskiye Izvestiya" on June 6, 1992, under the heading "Chronicle of the Mologa Territory", an obituary was published, signed by the initiative group of the Mologa community. It, in particular, said that Yuri Alexandrovich Nesterov was a regular military man, a reserve colonel. “In 1985, he began to study the history of his native city of Mologa and the entire Mologa-Sheksna interfluve. He was especially interested in the issues of resettlement, life and life of Mologzhans in new places.

Yuri Nesterov was one of the initiators of the creation of the Mologa Museum in Rybinsk. The book "Mologa - memory and pain" was published on the 50th anniversary of the flooding of his hometown by the Rybinsk reservoir. It contains documents and names such figures: about 150 thousand Volgolag prisoners worked on the construction of the Rybinsk hydroelectric complex, one hundred people a day died from diseases, hunger and "hellish" working conditions. “Today, on the site of Mologa, there is a huge water grave,” wrote Yu.A. Nesterov. - But, maybe, like the legendary Kitezh, it will open up to people before the Terrible Judgment Seat of Christ? After all, the Last Judgment has been going on for a long time, because our life is the Last Judgment itself. Nowadays, science often refutes the correctness of previous decisions, and if the low energy return of the Rybinsk cascade puts the lowering of the reservoir level or its descent on the agenda, then Mologa will indeed be able to rise out of the water someday.”

On August 12, 1995, the museum of the city of Mologa was solemnly opened in Rybinsk - a tiny island of the disappeared culture of Russian Atlantis.

Russian Pompeii

“Forest birds and animals retreat step by step to higher places and mounds. But water from the flanks and rear bypasses the fugitives. Mice, hedgehogs, ermines, foxes, hares and even moose are driven by water to the tops of hillocks and try to escape by swimming or on floating logs, peaks and branches left from logging.

Many forest giants-moose more than once fell into the spring flood and the flood of Mologa and Sheksna and usually safely swam to the coast or stopped in shallow places until the hollow waters subsided. But now the animals cannot overcome the unprecedented flood in terms of the size of the flooded area.

Many moose, having stopped trying to swim away, stand up to their belly in the water in shallower places and wait in vain for the usual decline in water. Some of the animals are saved on rafts and races prepared for rafting, living for several weeks. Hungry moose have eaten all the bark from the logs of rafts and, realizing the hopelessness of their situation, they let people on boats 10-15 steps ... "

... As a result of the construction of the Rybinsk Reservoir, 80 thousand hectares of floodplain meadows, 70 thousand hectares of arable land, more than 30 thousand hectares of highly productive pastures, and more than 250 thousand hectares of forests went under water. 633 villages and the ancient city of Mologa, the ancient estates of the Volkonskys, Kurakins, Azancheevs, Glebovs, the Ilovna estate owned by the Musin-Pushkins, the Yugskaya Dorofeeva Hermitage, three monasteries, several dozen churches disappeared. Some churches were blown up before flooding, others were left, and they gradually collapsed under the influence of water, ice and winds, serving as beacons for ships and a resting place for birds. The last to collapse in 1997 was the bell tower of the Church of St. John Chrysostom.

130 thousand people were resettled from the territory subject to flooding.

From an essay Vladimir Grechukhin « In the capital of Russian Atlantis»:

“We have long been going back through the dark sandy-silty desert. We don't talk much, it's still ahead. Each of us is still in Mologa. Both thought and feeling. And quietly comes the realization that the meeting with the murdered City, it seems, not only engulfed in misfortune, but also endowed him with some sad and proud strength. That there is something in these "Russian Pompeii" that still stopped your thoughts on the last brink of bitter impotence, and enlightened your eyes and strengthened them, as if with a prayer. So what touched you so bitterly and beneficially in the murdered City? And you realize in amazement that, probably, his Soul. That the City is dead, but the Soul seems to be alive. And, perhaps, in this place of conciliar Russian suffering, Russia found another holy place of Russian New Martyrdom? And is it worth looking for more important holy places in the Yaroslavl Territory, if there is a stunning case here when an entire city was torn out of its native life and punished without guilt with eternal exile? Is it not from the consciousness of the holiness of the desert hills of Mologa that the feeling of high and proud sad strength does not leave me? Is it not from her that the soul is so earnestly thoughtful? Is it not from her, as after a sermon, that she is sadly bright?

November 6 at 17.20 on Channel One - the premiere of a film about the mysterious history of the flooded Russian city of Mologa

Perhaps the time has come to tell about one city, which for more than 70 years has not been possible to come, walk along its streets - this city does not exist. The city that has gone forever into the abyss of the Rybinsk reservoir is the city of Mologa!

In this post there will be almost no words of mine, today the text will simply be copied from various Internet pages about the history of Mologa. Also today there will be no my photos - all the photos were also found on the expanses of the World Wide Web ...

Mologa is an ancient Russian city. The time of the initial settlement of the area where the city of Mologa stood is unknown. For the first time, the name Mologa, referring to the river, is mentioned in the annals under 1149, when the Grand Duke of Kiev Izyaslav Mstislavich, fighting with Yuri Dolgoruky, the prince of Suzdal and Rostov, burned all the villages along the Volga to the Mologa River itself. Presumably at that time there was already a small settlement on the river, which belonged to the Rostov princes. Then the chronicle legends are silent about the Mologa country until 1207. Under the Grand Duke Vsevolod, the Big Nest followed in Northern Rus' a new division into appanages, and Mologa, according to the will of Vsevolod, went to the share of his son of the Rostov prince Konstantin, and Konstantin, in 1218, together with Yaroslavl he gave it to his son Vsevolod.
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The city itself was rebuilt at the end of the 12th century. In the middle of the 13th century, Prince Yuri II came here to gather an army against the Tatar troops.

In 1321, the Principality of Mologa appeared - after the death of the Yaroslavl prince David, his sons, Vasily and Mikhail, divided his possessions: Vasily, as the eldest, inherited Yaroslavl, and Mikhail received an inheritance on the Mologa River.

In the 15th century, under Ivan III, the Principality of Mologa became part of Moscow. He also moved the fair to Mologa, which was previously located 50 km up the Mologa River in the Kholopye town. It was the largest in the Upper Volga region at the end of the 14th - beginning of the 16th century, but then lost its importance due to the shallowing of the Volga and the movement of trade routes. Nevertheless, Mologa remained a significant trading center of local importance.
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An ancient palace settlement or merchant settlement, Mologa received in 1777 the status of a county town of the Mologa district, and at the same time it was assigned to the Yaroslavl vicegerency and to the corresponding province. The city plan was confirmed on March 21, 1780 and October 26, 1834. Offices were opened in Mologa on January 4, 1778.
In 1778, there were already 418 houses and 20 shops in the newly discovered city, and 2109 inhabitants.

In 1895, there were already 11 factories (distillery, bone-grinding, glue-making and brick factories, a plant for the production of berry extracts, etc.), 58 workers, the amount of production was 38,230 rubles. Merchant certificates were issued: 1 guild 1, 2 guilds 68, for petty bargaining in 1191. The treasury, bank, telegraph, post office, and cinema functioned.
There were 3 libraries and 9 educational institutions: the city three-year men's school, the Alexander two-year women's school, two parish schools - one for boys, the other for girls; Alexandrovsky orphanage; "Podosenovskaya" (named after the founder of the merchant P. M. Podosenov, a major flax merchant) gymnastic school - one of the first in Russia, taught bowling, cycling, fencing; carpentry, marching and rifle techniques were taught, and the school also had a stage and stalls for staging performances.

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Until the revolution of 1917, Mologa was a rich merchant city at the crossroads of water trade routes - the Sheksna, Mologa and Volga rivers.
In addition to trade, agriculture was well developed in the city. Endless floodplain meadows provided excellent grass for cows, which had a positive effect on the taste of milk and butter. Youth oil was known in all major Russian cities. Economic merchants grew rich, built stone houses, erected temples, schools, hospitals.
By the beginning of the 20th century, five thousand people lived in Mologa. There were six cathedrals and churches, nine educational institutions, several factories and factories.

In the 1930s, there were more than 900 houses in the city, of which about a hundred were made of stone, and 200 shops and stores were located on the market square and near it. The population did not exceed 7 thousand people.
At the time of liquidation, the city lived a full life, it housed 6 cathedrals and churches, 9 educational institutions, plants and factories.
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In 1931, by a decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars, a plan was adopted for the construction of a cascade of reservoirs "Big Volga". Already in September of the following year, equipment and workers from the Dneproges were transferred near Rybinsk. The construction of the Rybinsk hydroelectric power station began, capable, according to the plan, of generating 200 MW of electricity around the clock. To do this, it was necessary to create a man-made sea - to flood the territory adjacent to the construction site. For normal operation of the station, the water level had to be 98 meters.

On September 14, 1935, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution on the start of construction of the Rybinsk and Uglich hydroelectric facilities. According to the original design, the height of the water surface above sea level of the Rybinsk reservoir was to be 98 m. On January 1, 1937, this figure was changed to 102 m, which almost doubled the amount of flooded land. The increase in the backwater level was due to the fact that these 4 meters made it possible to increase the generation capacity of the Rybinsk HPP from 220 to 340 MW.
The city of Mologa lay at around 98 m above sea level and, thus, fell into the flood zone. This meant the flooding of hundreds of thousands of hectares of land along with the settlements located on it, 700 villages and the city of Mologa.

In the autumn of 1936, the young people were announced about the upcoming resettlement. The local authorities decided by the end of the year to relocate about 60% of the city's residents and take out their houses, despite the fact that it was impossible to do it in the two months left before the freezing of the Mologa and the Volga, in addition, the rafted houses would have remained damp until the summer. However, it was not possible to fulfill this decision - the resettlement of residents began in the spring of 1937 and lasted four years.

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On April 13, 1941, the last opening of the dam was blocked. The waters of the Volga, Sheksna and Mologa began to overflow their banks and flood the territory. The tallest buildings in the city, churches were razed to the ground. All buildings had to be leveled at least to the level of the second floor - so that in the future they would not interfere with navigation. Of course, it was easiest to blow up houses with dynamite. Former residents of Mologa remember how the Cathedral of the Epiphany was demolished. Built to last, the mighty building from the first explosion only rose into the air, and then sank into place - whole and unharmed. Only the fourth or fifth charge of dynamite was able to destroy the cathedral.

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The city began to gradually sink under water, disappearing from the surface of the earth for many decades ...
"Only occasionally after a dry summer, on waning autumn days, Mologa will emerge from under the water, exposing its cobbled streets, the foundations of houses, a cemetery with tombstones. to himself, about his tragic history..."
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The city of Mologa was located 32 km from Rybinsk and 120 km from Yaroslavl in an area rich in water, at the confluence of the Mologa River with the Volga. The width of the Mologa River against the city was 277 m, the depth was from 3 to 11 m. The width of the Volga was up to 530 m, the depth was from 2 to 9 m. The city itself was located on a rather significant and even hill and stretched along the right bank of the Mologa and along the left Volga.

By the beginning of the 20th century, 34 stone houses and 659 wooden houses were built in Mologa. Of the non-residential buildings, there were stone - 58, wooden - 51. Population in the city: total - 7032, of which 3115 were men, 3917 were women.

Victims of electrification

The decision on the construction of the Rybinsk hydroelectric power station (one of the seven Volga-Kama cascade of hydroelectric power stations) was adopted in 1935. According to the initial project, the area of ​​​​the Rybinsk reservoir was to be 2.5 thousand km2, and the height of the water surface above sea level was 98 m. In this case, the city of Mologa, located at elevations of 98-101 m, would have remained alive. However, the gigantomania of the Stalinist five-year plans forced a revision of plans, and in 1937 it was decided to raise the water level to 102 m. The power of the hydroelectric power station increased by 65%, the area of ​​flooded land almost doubled. At the same time, the migration of people began. And on April 14, 1941, the last opening of the dam was blocked and the filling of the reservoir began, which lasted about six years. In 1991, this date was recognized as Mologa's memorial day.

As a result of the construction of the Rybinsk hydroelectric power station, an original city with an 800-year history, which was once the center of a specific principality, disappeared from the face of the earth. It included more than 700 villages and villages; unique old estates and three monasteries also perished. Water meadows, the pride of the Mologo-Sheksninskaya lowland, which had the status of seed-growing seed-growing grassland grasses of all-Union significance, have gone under water. The ecosystem of the region was disturbed, the climate began to change. But the most important thing is that the fate of 130 thousand people who suddenly lost their homeland has changed dramatically. The eviction proceeded in accordance with the sequence established by Volgostroy. Documents have been preserved in the archives of the museum, in which people asked to postpone the move until spring in order to be able to dry the logs after the rafting and assemble the houses before the onset of cold weather. They received disastrous answers: "You are talking anti-Soviet." "Volgostroy" was under the jurisdiction of the NKVD, and according to official data, during the construction of the Rybinsk hydro facility, 150 thousand prisoners were killed, convicted mainly under the 58th, anti-Soviet article.

However, there were other victims of the great construction. In the materials of the round table on the problems of the Mologa region, which took place in June 2003, there is a reference to an archival document, according to which 294 residents of Mologa preferred death to forced resettlement, chaining themselves up with chains or locking themselves in flooded houses.

For the sake of objectivity, it is worth saying that some migrants left for new places with pleasure. For example, those who lived near the water meadows of the Mologo-Sheksna lowland, which was regularly flooded. The majority consoled themselves with the thought that this was necessary for the good of the country. It is difficult to move to an empty place, it hurts to leave houses, households, the graves of relatives, but there is no other way out! “Our HPP supplied Moscow with electricity throughout the war,” says Nikolai Novotelnov, who for 30 years was a representative of the Molgozhan community. - The Volga became navigable. Then it was important."

hydroelectric power station

HPP complex in the Volga-Kama river basin. During their construction, seven reservoirs were formed: Ivankovskoye, Uglichskoye, Rybinskoye, Gorky, Cheboksary, Kuibyshevskoye and Volgogradskoye. Many cities were flooded, some partial and some complete. In the middle of the Uglich reservoir, the bell tower of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Kalyazin rises like a monument to the lost lands. Two-thirds of this city fell into the flood zone, including the Trinity Monastery, once the largest in Tver. The bell tower was saved from complete destruction by the decision to adapt it for training paratroopers. Later, an island was built around it to protect it from the destruction caused by water and ice drift.

Round glass porthole submarine. Behind it is a white-stone church, leaden waters closed over the neat onion domes. This model is one of the exhibits of the Museum of the Mologa region in the city of Rybinsk. In reality, however, no buildings have been preserved at the bottom of the reservoir, only piles of stones. What they failed to disassemble and move to a new place before flooding, they tried to blow it up. 20 out of 140 churches doomed to destruction did not manage to destroy the region. For many years they stood out of the water as lonely ghosts, collapsing gradually and steadily. But the flooded city does not want to accept its fate. In dry years, the water level in the artificial lake drops, which exposes the skeletons of houses, preserving the traces of ancient streets that can be walked again. And pass - those people who managed to keep in their hearts the memory of their small homeland.

The Rybinsk reservoir occupies 13% of the territory of the Yaroslavl region, in addition, partially capturing the Vologda and Tver regions.

Museum

The Museum of the Mologa Region is located in the building of the former chapel of the Afanasevsky Monastery. The monastery itself, located 3 km from the city of Mologa, perished during the flood. The chapel built on his Rybinsk farmstead managed to survive. When the museum was opened in 1995, it was re-consecrated. Where generations of Mologzhans who came to Rybinsk prayed, and now you can put a candle in front of the icon of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow”.

The basis of the museum collection was made up of exhibits evacuated from the Mologa Museum of Local Lore in 1936. Much was given by the Mologa residents themselves and their descendants. Another source of income came from expeditions to the flooded city, organized by the founder of the museum, Nikolai Alekseev, during the years when Mologa was opening, emerging from drought-pacified waters.

From Rybinsk to Mologa - 32 km. They go there on a specially rented motor ship, then sail on boats. “Imagine: people who are over 80 years old are moving into boats from the high side of the ship. It shakes - the wind is creepy there, ”says the director of the museum.