In 1869, an English entrepreneur John Hughes bought land from Prince Kochubey in the Yekaterinoslav province. On the banks of the Kalmius river, near the village of Aleksandrovka, he begins the construction of a metallurgical plant. For the development of coal founds a joint stock company. The metallurgical plant released its first products three years after the purchase of land by Hughes.
It was at this enterprise for the first time in the Russian Empire that such metallurgy innovations as the use of coke ovens and hot blasting were tested. Industry in the region has developed rapidly. Engineering, iron foundries were commissioned. The working village, called Yuzovka, was growing. And in 1917 he received the status of a city. In the same year, a nitrogen plant was opened. With the advent of Soviet power, the city was first renamed Stalin, and in 1961 it was given a new name - Donetsk.
Sights of Donetsk
Residents of the city in memory of the man who has done so much for the development of the region, erected in 2001 a monument to John Hughes. The city is located in the steppe zone. It is only occasionally surrounded by forests. In this area there are lakes, the aforementioned Kalmius river, small hills.
In December 2001, the Holy Iversky Monastery (Donetsk) was opened. The white stone building with lush domes and a bell tower is surrounded by unique vegetation. Some outlandish specimens were provided to the monastery by the Donetsk Botanical Garden. In the building of the cathedral was an Orthodox shrine - a list of the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God, written on the legendary Mount Athos by the monk Janis. Unfortunately, the monastery compound and buildings were badly damaged during the armed conflict in the Donbass.
In Donetsk there is a Muslim shrine - the Akhat-Jami mosque, which was opened in 1999. Although the construction began much earlier than the Muslim community called the "Star of the Prophet." It was the first mosque built in the Donbass. After this, religious buildings appeared in other cities of the region. By architecture, Akhat-Jami resembles some Muslim shrines of Istanbul. This is a central, beige colored building with a dark dome. On the sides are two graceful minarets directed at the sky.
Museum of Fine Arts
In 1939, the Museum of Fine Arts was founded in the city. During the Second World War it was closed. After the war, he was part of the regional study of local lore, then was called an art gallery. And in 1965, the Donetsk Regional Art Museum was formed. The paintings are exhibited here by domestic and foreign masters. There are exhibits representing the artistic treasures of antiquity. These are products from glass and bronze, red varnish ceramics, as well as vases, bowls and other utensils. More than one thousand exhibits include a collection of paintings by Western European artists Dufrenois, North, Amigoni, Glauber and others.
Beautiful exhibits at the exhibition of icons of Ukrainian and Russian masters of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The department of the museum devoted to decorative art is magnificent. These are products from glass, porcelain, wood, as well as Easter eggs, carpets, items of national clothes and more. The museum constantly operates an exposition where paintings by prominent artists are presented: Aivazovsky, Shishkin, Serov, Savrasov, Vasnetsov, Surikov and others. Here are more than four hundred sculptures.
Sculpture insurance
Six years ago, an unusual monument was erected in the city - an insurance agent. The idea of its creation belongs to the leadership of ASKA. The sculpture depicts a modest man in a coat, with a hat in one hand and a briefcase in the other. Fans of Soviet films will immediately recognize Yuri Detochkin in a meek, good-natured person . This is the main character of the cult Soviet film “Watch Out for the Car”, the image of which the master of Soviet cinema, the ingenious Innokenty Smoktunovsky, embodied wonderfully on the screen . The height of the bronze sculpture is about two meters. It is located at the intersection of Artyom Street and Shevchenko Boulevard.
Botanical Garden
What are the natural attractions of Donetsk? Among them should be noted the botanical garden, which was founded in 1964. It is one of the largest in Europe.
Fifteen years ago, he was given the status of a national treasure of Ukraine. At the moment, the area of the garden is about two hundred hectares. It is located along the Bogodukhovskaya beam. On its territory there are seven ponds. In addition to plants that grow under natural conditions, there are tropical and subtropical representatives of the flora, for which five greenhouses are equipped.
Museum Vasily Stus
What else is worth seeing the sights of Donetsk? In 2002, a museum was opened in Gorlovka dedicated to the uncompromising human rights activist, teacher, translator, writer Vasily Stus. Despite a different time period, the fate of Stus recalls the life of Osip Mandelstam, Lev Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova and other intellectuals who became victims of bullying by party officials and representatives of the criminal world. The museum contains photographs, prison clothes, documents from the KGB archives, magazines dedicated to Stus. It is noteworthy that the creator was the police lieutenant colonel Oleg Fedorov. In 2012, the museum moved to Donetsk.
Railway Museum
Simultaneously with the foundation of large factories, at the end of the nineteenth century, the railway developed intensively in Yuzovka. To the 130th anniversary of its opening, in 2000, the Museum of the History and Development of the Donetsk Railway begins to function. Here are collected exhibits of more than a hundred years ago. These are Morse telegraphs , an old book dated 1909, dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Catherine Railway, uniforms of workers and many other interesting exhibits.
Conclusion
Now you know the sights of Donetsk. There are beautiful monuments, museums, and many other interesting places in this city. We hope that the information presented in the article was useful to you.