Warning: Since 2014, Donetsk has been under the control of Russian-backed separatist forces and, since 2022, under full Russian military occupation. The city is not accessible to ordinary travellers. All information on this page reflects the city as it was before the conflict.
Donetsk is the largest city in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, an industrial centre built on coal and steel. Founded in 1869 by the Welsh industrialist John Hughes — the city was originally called Yuzovka after him — it grew rapidly around ironworks and coalmines that drew workers from across the Russian Empire and beyond. Renamed Stalino after the revolution, it became Donetsk in 1961.
The city was heavily damaged in World War II and rebuilt in Soviet style, with wide boulevards, open spaces (many left undeveloped because of mining subsidence beneath), and a long main street running from the railway station to the steelworks. Before 2014 it was a city of roughly a million people, known with some pride as the "city of a million roses" for the flowerbeds and rose gardens planted to soften its industrial character.
Pre-war Donetsk was a city of genuine civic ambition: a university, two theatres, a philharmonic hall, a metro system under construction, and the gleaming Donbas Arena football stadium — home of Shakhtar Donetsk, the club that had become one of Europe's more intriguing teams. Parks and tree-lined boulevards gave the city a green feel unexpected in a coal town. The centre around Teatralna Square had cafes, restaurants, and a cultural life that reflected both Ukrainian and Russian influences.
It remains a city whose history — and whose loss — matters to millions of Ukrainians displaced from it.