Donetsk - History

History

Donetsk was founded in 1869 when the Welsh businessman John Hughes built a steel plant and several coal mines in the southern part of the Russian Empire at Aleksandrovka (Ukrainian: Олександрівка). The town initially was given the name Hughesovka (Yuzovka; Russian: Юзовка; Ukrainian: Юзівка). By the beginning of the 20th century, Yuzovka had approximately 50,000 inhabitants, and had attained the status of a city in 1917. The main district of "Hughezovka" named English Colony. The British origin of the city reflected in its layout and architecture.

In 1924, under the Soviet rule, the city's name was changed to Stalin. In that year, the city's population totaled 63,708, and in the next year — 80,085. In 1929-31 the city's name was changed to Stalino. The city did not have a drinking water system until 1931, when a 55.3 km system was laid underground. In July 1933, the city became the administrative center of the Donetsk Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1933, the first 12 km sewer system was installed, and next year the first exploitation of gas was conducted within the city. In addition, some sources state that the city was briefly called Trotsk—after Leon Trotsky—for a few months in 1923.

In the beginning of World War II, the population of Stalino consisted of 507,000, and after the war - only 175,000. The Nazi invasion during World War II almost completely destroyed the city, which was mostly rebuilt on a large scale at the war's end. It was occupied by Nazi Germany between 16 October 1941 and 5 September 1943.

The territory of Donetsk at the time of the Nazi German occupation consisted mainly of a Jewish ghetto, in which 3,000 Jews died, and a concentration camp in which 92,000 people were killed. During the war, a collective responsibility system was enforced. For every killed German soldier, 100 inhabitants were killed, and one for every killed policeman.

In 1945 many forced labourers, young men and women aged 17 to 35, were interned into reparation servitude from the Danube Schwabian communities Schwowe of Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania (the Batschka and Banat) and worked under extreme hardship to rebuild Stalino and to labour in its mines. Many died from disease and malnutrition.

During Nikita Khrushchev's second wave of destalinization in November 1961 the city was renamed Donetsk, after the Seversky Donets River, a tributary of the Don in order to distance it from the former leader Joseph Stalin.

In 1965, the Donetsk Academy of Sciences was established as part of the Academy of Science of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1970, Donetsk was recognised by UNESCO as the cleanest industrial town of the world. Donesk was granted the Order of Lenin in 1979.

After experiencing a tough time in the 1990s, when it was the centre of gang wars for control over industrial enterprises, Donetsk has modernised quickly in recent years, largely under the influence of big companies.

Residents of the city tend to be conservative in their political beliefs. This came out during the 2004 presidential election, in which the city mostly voted for candidate Viktor Yanukovych, which had been announced as the winner of the election by the Central Election Commission. The vote was later revoked by the court. This led to an election re-run, thus making Yanukovych lose the election. During the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary elections, the Yanukovych-led Party of Regions also won most of the votes from the region.