Old Russian Towns Were Flooded on Purpose

Every year on the second Saturday of August, a ferry departs from a pier in the town of Rybinsk (165 miles northeast of Moscow), and travels into the waters of the Rybinsk Reservoir, stopping for a while as the ship's passengers lower wreaths onto the surface of the water. This is the annual gathering of Mologa citizens and their families. The town of Mologa was completely flooded when the Rybinsk Reservoir was created in the late 1930s, and it's still remembered by those who were born there before the “flood.”