Hughes Reading took place in Donetsk

On December 4 the Hughes Reading took place in the Small Hall of the Donetsk Polytechnic University, dedicated to the 200-hundred anniversary of the well-know entrepreneur from Wales, the founder of Donetsk John Hughes. Several reports were made by scientists and local lore students:

1. Biography of John Hughes (Oleg Izmaylov).
   2. “The Novorussian society for coal, iron and rails production”: Hughes’ team (Dmitriy Neylo).
   3. The Hughes family (Anatoliy Zharov).
   4. The household of the Hughes family: the attempt at reconstruction (Vladislav Rusanov).
   5. The architecture of old Yuzovka (Aleksandr Peshekhonov).

While I listened to the exceptionally interesting lectures, I thought about the quirks of history.

The history of each region has its milestones. The history of Donbass – let us say its modern times history – begins… from the Crimea. Why from the Crimea, you will ask. Well, to be exact, it starts from the Crimean war, the aftermath of which put on the agenda the issue of urgent construction of railways to connect the center of Russia with the south. In order to build the railways steel was needed, and for the production of large amounts of steel the country needed big metallurgic works. In order to build such works one should hire experts and invite businessmen. And such people were found in the coal-mining region of Wales. One coal region passed the baton to another coal-mining region – is it not symbolic? And here, in the Donetsk steppe, the might of Russian Empire began to be forged. From here hot metal outpoured, like blood, owing to which the boy of the state was growing and developing. Furnaces started flaring here, in which anthracite burned that had been giving away concentrated in it in the course of millenniums energy. Here the flywheel was started that with its rhythmic movement turned Donbass into the heart of Russia. And, of course, behind all the se processes were people, personalities. Those people commemorated by us today, whose faces look at us from old lithographs, and the nameless labourers, of whom only the fruits of their labour remained. I can say that the people of Donbass today by their everyday work prove, that their ancestors did not toil in vain, that this land will be restored and revitalized, and no one will be forgotten and nothing will be forgotten.