Donetsk
— — a city the steppe wind has always reached.
Not only on a wall.
“Donetsk sits on the open steppe of eastern Ukraine, on the Kalmius River. It was founded in 1869 by a Welsh industrialist who built ironworks and a town to house them, and grew through coal and steel into one of the largest cities in the country. It is sometimes called the city of a million roses, for the bushes that were planted along the boulevards in the Soviet decades and still flower each June.
Donetsk, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Donetsk is the administrative centre of Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine, on the Kalmius River about 100 kilometres north of the Sea of Azov. The city was founded in 1869 by John Hughes, a Welsh industrialist who built an ironworks and a settlement to house its workers; the town was originally called Yuzovka, after his name. Population reached roughly 900,000 in 2013, making Donetsk one of the largest cities in Ukraine. The surrounding region, the Donbas, holds one of Europe's largest coal basins and grew through heavy industry across the twentieth century.
The city is a creation of the industrial age more than a medieval one. The original ironworks of John Hughes opened in 1872, and steel mills and coal mines fanned out across the basin in the decades that followed. The boulevards were laid wide, lined with chestnuts and rose bushes; the Soviet-era housing blocks stand five and nine storeys, in light-coloured brick. The Donbass Arena, completed in 2009 for FC Shakhtar Donetsk, was once the most modern football ground in Eastern Europe. The salt mine of nearby Soledar held a chamber large enough to host concerts.
The city was a working centre for most of its life. Football mattered: Shakhtar Donetsk won the UEFA Cup in 2009 and played in the Champions League for a decade. The annual Donetsk Rose Festival opened the summer each June, with bushes planted by the city and tended by residents. Since 2014, and again after February 2022, the city has been held outside Ukrainian government control, and most of its pre-war residents have left. The roses still bloom, by the testimony of those who remain.