Hand back Donetsk its original British name
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/andy-hunder-hand-back-donetsk-its-original-british-name-361024.html
“Donetsk is a British city! God Save the Queen!” – so an online social media referendum campaign, slightly tongue-in-cheek, promulgated earlier this year. The link with Britain comes from John Hughes, a Welsh businessman, the city’s founder, who launched the first iron-works at the end of the 19th century and subsequently built a steel plant and opened several coal mines in the region. The town was consequently named Yuzovka, or Hughesovka (“Юз” being a Cyrillic approximation of Hughes).
Today, the eastern Ukrainian city of 1 million residents is seeing intense military confrontation, where Ukrainian troops are fighting off and closing in on the Russian backed and funded mercenaries and terrorists.
During the 19th century, Hughesovka received numerous immigrants from Wales, especially from the town of Merthyr Tydfil. By the beginning of the 20th century its main district was named English Colony, with the British origin of the city reflected in its layout and architecture.
During Soviet times, the city’s steel industry expanded and in 1924 it was renamed Stalino. In 1961, Nikita Krushchev, in order to distance it from the out-of-favour former leader Joseph Stalin, gave the city a new name – Donetsk, named after the Seversky Donets River. Apart from today being twinned with Sheffield in the UK, it is also twinned with the US steel city of Pittsburgh.
Yuzovka -> Stalino -> Donetsk -> ? (Hughesovka)
Pour effacer l’empreinte du passé, rien de mieux que le retour au passé. L’époque (bénie) de l’entrée des capitaux occidentaux en Russie.
John Hughes, a Welsh businessman who lived from 1814 – 1889, found modern-day Donetsk as an iron-making town.
