Donbass, My Home Land. Answer the questions

Donbass, My Home Land

Answer the questions

1. What do you know about the history of our region?

2. Have you ever heard about twin-cities of Donbass?

3. Have you ever heard about Mertsalov's Palm?

Every country is proud of its history and labour traditions of its ancestors trying to preserve its originality and uniqueness.

There was time when Donechchyna embraced almost the entire territory of the Donetsk range. Now it is the place where the most famous industrial region with a proud name of Donbass emerged.

Originally Donetsk land didn’t stand for a nation living in this place. It was a natural-geographical name for a place that had a high concentration of minerals (coal and ore), a seacoast and was located on the cross roads of the most ancient trade way between the East and the West (the so called Big Silk Way).

The discovery of mineral resources, industrial development and population growth in this place caused the formation of a specific character of labour and mode of life, new culture and psychology of people: the feeling of collectivism, ability to take risks and be self-sacrificing, adventurism, striving for new and unknown things and also a sharp sense of life. Since that time there has appeared an image of Donbass not as a territory but rather as a symbol of a special spirit of its people who overcame the outer limitations and made a step to inner freedom and development.

No wonder that most of Donbass cities are linked by treaties with their twin cities of England, France, Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland. Production of Donetsk plants has been exhibited in Paris, London (Mertsalov’s Palm), Montreal (there in 1971 Donetsk was considered to be the best among the young industrial cities of the world), Moscow and Tokyo, St. Petersburg and Middleburg.

People had been living on this land long before BC. Tavrs, Poxolans, Goths, Huns, Alans, Hungarians, Bulgarians – different people inhabited northern Azov-Black Sea grasslands between the still Don and the rapid Dniper River. In the time of Christ these beautiful grasslands and the blue sea got the Slavonic name of “The Wild Field”. Zaporizhya Cossacks, historians say, became owners of the wild steppe after the overthrow of the yoke of Tartar Mongols. These free independent people started rallying, forming individual armies, setting in Kyiv, Kaniv, Cherkassy and named themselves the Ukrainian Cossacks. Landless peasants also joined them.

On their free lands Cossacks’ duty was to protect the area and strike off any attacks of Tartars. The people had their rights too. They had the right to hunt wild animals, to fish in small rivers and the sea, to plant cattle, to use wood as a building material and also to extract and produce salt. Salt was produced in Tor (now Slaviansk) and with time in Bakhmut (now Artemivs’k) salt mines.

In order to protect the Orthodox people from war and captivity and guard salt production from destruction there were built cities, burgs and fortresses in the southern outskirts of the country. The salt found by our forefathers in the land of Donechchyna and then mastered as “white land” by their descendants, has engendered, in a sense, the first industry of Donbas.

In 1740 M. Lomonosov, on Emperor Anna Ioannovna’s commission, dealt with salt business problems in Bakhmut. Thus began a process of active exploration and research of the region’s lands.

But the trouble was that salt production required a lot of firewood and wood coal. For that purpose forests around the salt works were entirely cut down. The price of wood drove the price of salt. Under those conditions the question arose: what to substitute firewood and wood coal with.

In the connection with the above mentioned a very important historical fact should be mentioned. Peter the First, returning from his first Azov campaign in 1696, was shown some samples of coal, which stroke the tsar with its high quality. Predicting the future Peter the First said, ” This mineral, if not for us, then for our descendents will be of good service. ”

Among peasants there were rumors about “combustible stone” (горюче каміння). In that way the people called coal. That was how searches of black coal were started. And coal was found! Mykyta Vepreysky and Semen Chyrkov were the first to find coal in Skelevata gully and on the bank of the small river Bilen’ka in 1721. In 1827 a prominent scientist and mining engineer Yevgraf Kovalevsky compiled the first geological map of the range and named the range after Donetsk.

Thus Donetsk range opened its treasures and allowed Humans to enter its depts.

Donbas was born, undoubtedly, with the force and wit of local people. Being united by the shared intent to populate the wild steppe, they rode and came from everywhere. A great number of nationalities that inhabited the former tsarist Russia would come to Donetsk land. More than 100 nations and nationalities live now in Donbas. They got united psychologically and spiritually not around one native nation, but around the ideology of co-existence, co-enrichment and unlimited inner freedom of creativity and work. Long aged mixing up and co-existing of different cultures and religions within one territory turned Donbass into a unique training ground of the future, to which Alexander Block gave an apt definition: “New America”.

Now let’s return to the events of the first half of the 19^th century. More and more mines began to be built. Railways had connected Donetsk coal to Kryvorizhya ore, thus having formed favourable conditions for rapid heavy industry development in the region.

Dmytro Ivanovych Mendeleyev, a Russian scientist, who devised the periodic system of chemical elements and visited Donbas several times, during his last visit in the late 19^th century wrote down in his diary: ”Former desert came to life with full success. The opportunity was proved by business”.

Mining industry growth assisted the development of black (ferrous) metallurgy. A lot of businessmen from England, Germany, France, and Belgium started arriving in the Donetsk range. One of them was an English mill owner John Hughes. In 1869 he started building metal works in the upper reach of Kalmius. On January 24, 1872, the plant was commissioned and has been melting metal until today. Yuzivs’ky Metal Works was recognized in Russia and abroad. A factory blacksmith Oleksiy Ivanovych Mertsalov forged a palm with one bar. His work won the highest awards at the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition in Nizhniy Novgorod in 1895 and at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1900. Mertsalov’s Palm is a masterpiece of the world’s applied art. It has become the core component of the emblem of Donetsk region – a symbol of historically reasonable creative and technical potential. In our country National Program “Mertsalov’s Palm” is designed for many years ahead, now it is under implementation. It provides for installation of the Palm copies in capitals of 68 countries of the world.

With respect and gratitude to the past, Donbass confidently walks into the future.