Donetsk - industrial city in Ukraine. News, hotels, business, sport, EURO 2012, shops

Donetsk in the night. Photo.

Donetsk in the night. Postysheva street near Lenin sqr.

Unfinished hospital in Donetsk

The large building of unfinished hospital is located in the south of Donetsk. It there should be the largest hospital of the similar plan in the USSR, with the helicopter platforms, equipped on last word of technics.

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Jokes with city fountain in Donetsk

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History

Donetsk was founded in 1869 when the Welsh businessman John Hughes built a steel plant and several coal mines in southern part of Russia at Olexandrivka.The town initially was given the name Hughesovka (Yuzovka; Russian: Юзовка). By the beginning of the 20th century, Yuzovka had approximately 50,000 inhabitants, and had attained the status of a city in 1917.

During the Russian Revolution, Donetsk became a major town of the short-lived Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic, which was later to be incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR. In 1924, under the Soviet rule, the city’s name was changed to Stalino. In that year, the city’s population totaled 63,708, and in the next year — 80,085. The city did not have a drinkwater system until 1931, when a 55.3 km system was laid underground. In July 1933, the city became the administrative centre 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 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.

The territory of Donetsk in the Great Patriotic War 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.

During Khrushchev’s second wave of destalinization in November 1961, all Soviet cities named after Stalin were renamed. Stalino’s name was changed to Donetsk, after the Seversky Donets river, a tributary of the Don.

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

Residents of the city tend to be pro-Russian in their political beliefs. This has been massively exploited during 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 proven to have been falsified, with many of the falsified votes coming from the surrounding region. 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.

Information from Wikipedia

Demographics

Donetsk currently has a population of over 988,000 inhabitants (2007) and has a metropolitan area of over 1,566,000 inhabitants (2004). It is the fifth-largest city in Ukraine.

While the majority of people in central and western Ukraine speak Ukrainian, most residents of Donetsk are Russian-speaking Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. According to 2001 population census, Ukrainians are 56,9% of Donetsk oblast and Russians are 38,2%. The Russian language is dominant in Donbas.

The actual nationality structure of the Donetsk City Municipality is as follows:

1. Russians: 493,392 people, 48.15%
2. Ukrainians: 478,041 people, 46.65%
3. Belarusians: 11,769 people, 1.15%
4. Greeks: 10,180 people, 0.99%
5. Jews: 5,087 people, 0.50%
6. Tatars: 4,987 people, 0.49%
7. Armenians: 4,050 people, 0.40%
8. Azerbaijanis: 2,098 people, 0.20%
9. Georgians: 2,073 people, 0.20%
10. Other: 13,001 people, 1.27%

Total: 1,024,678 people, 100.00%