Luhansk Reference Book
Luhansk. A city at the confluence of the Luhan and Vilkhivka rivers and the capital of Luhanske oblast. It is one of the major industrial centers of the country. In 1935-58 and from 1970 until May 1990 it was called Voroshylovhrad.
Luhansk oblast. An administrative territory in eastern Ukraine, formed on 3 June 1938. It has an area of 26,700 sq km and is divided into 18 raions, 37 cities, 109 towns (smt), and 189 rural councils. The capital is Luhansk.
Luhansk was founded in 1795, when the imperial government decided to build a cannon foundry and ammunition factory for the Black Sea navy there. During the Napoleonic Wars the plant was greatly expanded, and the workers' population increased. The state enterprise stimulated the development of mining in the Donets Basin. After the Crimean War the foundry could not compete with more efficient plants, and in 1887 it was shut down. By then Luhansk was a large industrial center linked by rail to the Dnieper Industrial Region and the ports of the Sea of Azov. In 1882 the county administration was moved from Slavianoserbske to Luhansk, and the town was granted city status. In 1895 the government reopened a munitions factory in Luhansk, and in 1896 a Belgian firm established the largest steam-engine plant in the Russian Empire there. By 1905 the plant was building 2.1. percent of the steam engines produced in the empire. The city's population grew from 20,400 in 1897 to 34,000 in 1904 and 68,000 in 1914. Much of its population (68.2 percent in 1897) was Russian.
Under the Soviet regime the city grew rapidly in the in-terwar period. In 1938 it became the administrative center of a new oblast. Today it is an important railway and highway junction and a major industrial center. Its most important industries are machine building and metal-working; it has a diesel-locomotive building consortium, a coal machine-building plant, a motor-vehicle assembly plant, a crankshaft factory, a combustion-engine parts factory, and a tube-rolling mill. The light industry manufactures goods such as fine fabrics, footwear, knitwear, and clothing. The plants of the food industry include meat packers, dairies, and confectionery factories. The building-materials industry produces bricks, tiles, and reinforced concrete. The energy to run the industries is supplied by the Luhansk Power Station.
The city's educational system includes 4 institutions of higher learning - the Agricultural and Medical institutes and Pedagogical and East Ukrainian uneversities - as well as 12 specialized secondary schools and 21 vocational schools. The first Ukrainian gymnasium was opened only in 1991. There are about 40 research institutes, including a coal-enrichment institute and a branch of the Institute of the Economics of Industry. The cultural facilities of the city include three theaters (Ukrainian music and drama, Russian drama, and puppet), a circus, a museum of regional studies, and an art museum.
Encyclopedia of Ukraine, volume III (University of Toronto Press Incorporated, 1993)
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