Flooded Mologa

Mologa stood where the Mologa river joined the Volga; the river's first mention dates to 1149, from 1321 it was the centre of its own principality, and from 1777 a district town. By the 1930s about seven thousand people lived here, with churches, a cathedral and trade along the Mologa and the Volga. In 1935 the decision was made to build the Rybinsk and Uglich hydro nodes; in 1937 the design level was raised from 98 to 102 metres — and the town, lying at elevations of 98–101, fell into the flooding zone. Resettlement lasted four years; on 13 April 1941 Mologa stood empty, and by 1946 it was under water. Seven hundred settlements were flooded, the churches blown up beforehand. The memory is alive: since 1972, every second Saturday of August, Mologans gather in Rybinsk and take a boat to the site of the city. Since 1995 the Mologa Region Museum has worked in Rybinsk. In low-water years (1992–1993, 2014, 2018, 2024) streets, foundations and gravestones surface — arriving in such a year is a rare chance to see Mologa.