Why won't the server start via django-admin?

Question

linux

I have a small question: I'm trying to start the django server via
django-admin runserver --setting=mysite.settings (mysite is the project folder, settings is the settings module)
exactly as it says here https://docs.djangoproject.com/ en/1.8/ref/django-admin/
Instead of success, I get an error: "ImportError: No module named 'mysite' "
even though I specify everything correctly.
I also tried to change the environment variable DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE - the effect is the same.
Python version -3.4; Django-1.8
There is __init__.py in mysite directory.

Thanks in advance for your replies.