Kramatorsk city, Ukraine

In 1896, an important event happened that determined the future of Kramatorsk. It was then that the Swiss Konrad Gamper took Russian citizenship, bought a land plot near the Kramatorovka station, and his company started construction of a machine-building plant. Today, it is known as Starokramatorsk Machine-Building Plant.

In 1899, Konrad Gamper founded the Kramatorsk Metallurgical Society, and in the same year the first blast furnace was put into operation at the Kramatorsk metallurgical plant. Today, the name of Konrad Gamper - the founder of the machine-building and metallurgical plants of Kramatorsk - occupies a worthy place in the history of industrial development of Ukraine.

Kramatorsk in the first half of the 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, other industrial enterprises were opened in Kramatorovka and around it. In 1910, in one of the buildings of the plant of the Kramatorsk Metallurgical Society, the movie theater “Era” was opened. The plant began to specialize in the production of equipment for metallurgical plants and coal mines. Steam locomotives were also repaired in its workshops. In 1911, about 160 thousand tons of pig iron and 61 thousand tons of steel were produced here.

In 1912, the cement plant “Pushka” (“cannon”) of the Russian-Belgian society began to operate. Its first products were intended for the construction of the St. Petersburg Arms Plant, hence the name. The population of Kramatorovka was about 12,000 people at that time.

For several months in 1918, during the First World War, Kramatorovka was occupied by German troops. It was part of the Ukrainian State (also known as the Second Hetmanate), which was installed by German military authorities and headed by Pavlo Skoropadskyi. On February 5, 1919, the village became part of Soviet Ukraine as part of the Donetsk Governorate (official secession from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on February 17, 1919, the day the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Republic was abolished).

In 1920, the plant of the Kramatorsk Metallurgical Society was nationalized and received the name of the Kramatorsk State Machine-Building and Metallurgical Plant. In 1923, the Kramatorsk district was created. Kramotorovka became its administrative center. In 1926, the population of Kramatorovka reached the pre-war level of 12,000 people. In 1932, the Kramatorsk district was disbanded and Kramatorovka received the status of a town with the name Kramatorsk as part of the newly formed Donetsk Oblast.

By 1926, the blast-furnace and open-hearth shops of the metallurgical plant surpassed the pre-war level of production. In 1927, the first printed newspaper of the town appeared, called “Kramatorsk Domna”. On September 19, 1930, it was renamed into “Kramatorsk Pravda”. In 1930, the Kramatorsk Machine-Building Institute was established on the basis of the machine-building technical school.

According to the census of 1939, the population of Kramatorsk was 94,114 people (increased by almost 8 times in 13 years). In 1940, more than 30 thousand workers, 5 thousand engineers and technicians worked at the city’s plants; there were 4 hospitals, 33 schools. On February 24, 1941, after four years of construction, the Kramatorsk Heavy Machine Tool Plant was put into operation.

Kramatorsk during and after the Second World War

On October 27, 1941, during the Second World War, German troops occupied Kramatorsk. On February 6, 1943, the Soviet troops managed to drive the Germans out of the city with a counteroffensive. On February 27, 1943, the German army recaptured the city. On September 6, 1943, Kramatorsk was again liberated by Soviet troops.

During the occupation, about 6 thousand locals were killed, more than 10 thousand people were sent to Germany for forced labor. All industrial enterprises were destroyed, as well as about 1,300 houses, 15 schools and a number of other institutions.

In the post-war years, destroyed enterprises were restored in Kramatorsk, more than 10 new industrial facilities were built. The 1950s and 1960s became a period of industrial, economic and cultural development of Kramatorsk. In 1967, the city museum of Kramatorsk was opened. In 1968, Kramatorsk solemnly celebrated its 100th anniversary. From 1956 to 1989, the population of Kramatorsk increased from about 117,000 to 198,000 people.

Radiation Incident in Kramatorsk

In the 1980s, the so-called Radiation Incident in Kramatorsk took place in the city. In the late 1970s, a source of ionizing radiation was lost in the Karansky quarry in Donetsk Oblast - a capsule with cesium-137, which was used in the radioisotope level gauge of an enterprise that produced crushed stone. The capsule was not found.

In 1980, a panel apartment building was commissioned in Kramatorsk on Gvardeytsev-Kantemirovtsev Street (today, it is the building #7 on Mariyi Pryymachenko Street). The lost capsule, which emitted about 1,800 Roentgen per year, along with crushed stone, was immured into one of the walls of this building.

In the summer of 1981, an 18-year-old girl died in one of the apartments of the building, a year later - her 16-year-old brother, then their mother. Another family moved into this apartment, in which a teenage boy died in 1987, and his younger brother became seriously ill. All those who died died of leukemia. Doctors could not establish the cause of the disease and explained a similar diagnosis by hereditary predisposition.

The father of the second family turned to the sanitary and epidemiological station with a request to check the background radiation in the apartment. During the check, dangerous levels of radiation were recorded, especially high in the children’s room, in the adjacent apartment behind the wall and in the apartment on the floor above.

The dwellers of these apartments were relocated. The source of radiation was localized inside the panel of the inter-apartment partition. After cutting out part of the wall, it was taken to the Kyiv Institute for Nuclear Research, where the capsule with cesium-137 was removed. After the source was removed, the level of radiation in the building caught up with the natural background. In total, 6 people died (4 children and 2 adults) and 17 were recognized as victims of radiation exposure and became disabled.

Kramatorsk in independent Ukraine

Since 1991, Kramatorsk has been a city within independent Ukraine. In the early 1990s, the rupture of economic and financial ties with the republics of the former USSR turned into an economic crisis for the city’s enterprises. In 1998-1999 the economic situation stabilized. In the 2000s, the local industry began to grow again. In 2003, the index of industrial production in relation to 1990 was 95.8%.

On September 24, 2008, the flag and the new coat of arms of Kramatorsk were adopted.

In the mid-1990s, the population of Kramatorsk reached a historical maximum of about 203 thousand people. After that, it began to steadily decline and decreased by 27% (56 thousand) by 2021. The residential sector of the city is represented by both one-story private buildings and multi-story (2-5, 9, 14) apartment buildings.

From April 12 to July 5, 2014, Kramatorsk was controlled by the forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. During the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) carried out by the Ukrainian authorities against armed militias in Kramatorsk, several dozen people were killed in street battles. On July 5, 2014, after leaving Slavyansk, the DPR forces also left Kramatorsk.

On October 13, 2014, Kramatorsk received the status of the administrative center of Donetsk Oblast, since Donetsk remained under the control of the Donetsk People’s Republic.

On February 10, 2015, the Kramatorsk airport, where the headquarters of the Anti-Terrorist Operation was located, and the city itself were shelled. As a result, 17 people were killed, of which 9 were soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; 64 people were wounded, including 15 servicemen and 5 children.

On April 8, 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a missile attack was launched on the railway station of Kramatorsk. 57 people were killed and 109 were injured.

As of the beginning of 2023, most of the population left Kramatorsk on their own or was evacuated. However, thousands of people still live in the city. In the event of the fall of Bakhmut, Kramatorsk and nearby Slavyansk will become the main and last significant Ukrainian defensive line in Donetsk Oblast. It is quite possible that the outcome of the war will be decided in the battles for these two cities.