Russian Atlantology was quite unknown to the general reader in the West until the fall of communism. This was mainly due to a combination of the strictures of the communist regime and the language barrier. A recent submission to Wikipedia on the subject of Russian Atlantology was rejected but can be read here⁽ⁱ⁾.

It is accepted that Russian Atlantology began in the 18th century with brief references in a number of technical and poetic works. However, it was not until the 19^th century that Avraam Norov attempted the first serious scientific attempt to locate Atlantis. Following a study of Greek and Arabic sources, Norov was convinced that Plato’s lost civilisation had been situated in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Later in the same century, a new element was introduced to the subject with the ‘revelations’ of Elena Blavatsky and the creation of Theosophy. To this day her esoteric waffle is quoted and accepted unthinkingly by many otherwise rational beings. The renowned Russian novelist Alexei Tolstoy devoted an episode in his novel Aelita to the subject of Atlantis.

In 1912, Vladimir Bogachev, a noted geologist published a short work on the geology of Atlantis entitled Atlantida. Bogachev lectured at the University of Dorpat in Estonia and is often labelled ‘the father of Russian Atlantology’. A few years later,  the poet and historian, Valery Bryusov, wrote of Atlantis flourishing at the end of the last Ice Age. In 1923 the geographer, Boris Bobrynin, identified the  Guanches of the Canaries as the descendants of the Atlanteans.

The doyen of Russian atlantologists in the latter half of the 20^th century was undoubtedly Nikolai Zhirov whose studies over many years were published in English in 1970 and again in 2001^[458]. It is a work of great erudition although it is a little dated as most of the material was originally published in Russian in the 1950s. Zhirov uncompromisingly determined to promote the Atlantic as the original location of Atlantis. He wrote a short overview of Russian Atlantology for Egerton Sykes‘ Atlantis journal in 1959^(j).

More recently Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev published his thesis regarding the location of Atlantis on the Internet^(a). He is convinced that it was located on the Celtic Shelf near the Scilly Isles. Vladimir Pakhomov is another supporter of the ‘Atlantis in the Atlantic’ school of thought and also promotes his views on the Internet^(b).

In 1994 Vlaceslav Jurikov proposed that Atlantis had been located near the Lipari Islands and its refugees fled to Ukraine resulting in the modern symbol of Ukraine being the trident of Poseidon. Coincidentally, the Ukrainian connection has also received support from non-Russians, the exotic-sounding Flying Eagle and Whispering Wind^[138](c) and the Schoppes^(d).

The late Alexander Voronin was the president of the Russian Society for Studying the Problem of Atlantis  [ROIPA], which has held three congresses on the subject. At the last congress, Alexander Gorodnitsky, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, spoke controversially of the existence of highly advanced civilisations in the distant past. Voronin was also the chief editor of Atlantis: Problems, Searches, Hypotheses.

Konstantin Dukarev has written a review of scientific Atlantology with particular reference to Russian studies^(e).  Although the paper is in Russian it translates well, but without paragraphs, making it more difficult to read.

A hyperdiffusionist view of Russia as the world’s mother culture, employing a level of hyperbole not endured since the days of Stalin, can be now read^(f) online for your added enjoyment. 

There are aspects of modern Russian nationalism that seem to employ some of the rhetoric of the Nazi regime as well as their ideas of an Arctic homeland and even more worryingly, anti-Semitism^(g). The linkage of Atlantis with this Arctic homeland was highlighted a few years ago on the Pravda website^(h).

^(a) Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev’s Hypothesis on Plato’s Atlantis (archive.org)

^(b) Atlantis. Map of Atlantis (archive.org) *

^(c) https://www.atlantis-motherland.com/home.html

^(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20190819053842/https://www.black-sea-atlantis.com/schoppe.pdf

^(e)  https://www.proza.ru/2012/12/20/355

^(f) https://www.facebook.com/notes/739187389451526/ 

^(g) See: Archive 2415

^(h) https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GUEA_enIE624IE624&q=Mankind+descended+from+civilization+of+Atlanteans+in+the+Arctic

⁽ⁱ⁾ See: Archive 3918

^(j) Atlantis Vol.13 No.1 Dec 1959