Volnovakha city, Donetsk region. Volnovakha, Volnovakha district, Donetsk region Volnovakha city, Donetsk region
Volnovakha is a city of regional significance, district center. Administratively, it is subordinated to the Volnovakha District Council. Located in the southern part of the region, at the junction of the Mariupol-Donetsk railway line to Zaporozhye, Odessa, Crimea. The city is located on the Donetsk-Mariupol highway.
The settlement was founded as a railway station in 1881 during the construction of the Catherine Railway. At the beginning of the twentieth century. in Volnovakha there were 45 households, about 250 people lived. By 1915 there were 108 households and 634 inhabitants. There was a shop, a bazaar, a private bakery, and a school. In 1895, a station was built at the station, in 1896 - locomotive depot, in 1900, second tracks were laid between Yuzovka and Mariupol through Volnovakha. By 1905 the station became a junction. In 1908, the school of artel elders was transferred to Volnovakha from Debaltsevo - the first school in Russia for training craftsmen (artel elders) for construction railways.
The development of the railway junction and the village was facilitated by the industrialization of the country. During the first five-year plans, a bakery, a soft drink factory, a food processing plant, and a printing house were built. Volnovakha received city status in 1938. Its population in 1939 was 15.3 thousand people. There were two middle and seven-year schools, two hospitals, a clinic, a kindergarten, a stadium, a factory-kitchen, a palace of culture, three libraries, and about 20 shops. Within the city there were two collective farms and a state farm.
In the years after the Great Patriotic War, Volnovakha became major center food industry and construction industry.
The city covers an area of 20 square meters. km, of which 59% is under construction. There are 448 square meters per inhabitant. m of green space. Average temperature January -6.6, July +21.5. 500 mm of precipitation falls per year. There is a weather station in the city.
Half of those employed in the national economy work in enterprises railway transport. Main industrial enterprises: construction materials factories, asphalt concrete plants, dairy, bread, bakery products plants.
The city has 7 secondary schools, a station for young technicians, an art school, a palace of children and youth creativity, 2 hospitals, a vocational school, local history museum.
Volnovakha is surrounded by a forest park. Nearby is one of the most high points Azov Upland - Goncharik's Tomb (278 m above sea level).
To the north-west of the city stretches the Velikoanadolsky forest, founded in the 40s. XIX century Russian forest scientist V.E. Graff. This is the first forest plantation in the Ukrainian steppe. Today the Velikoanadolsky forest is the standard of steppe afforestation. Its area is 2500 hectares. Dozens of tree and shrub species grow here. Large collection of their exotic species from different countries of the world was collected in the dendrological park of the forestry.
Volnovakha is a city of regional subordination, the center of the region. Located 60 km south of Donetsk. Railway junction. The Zhdanov-Donetsk railway passes through the city, which connects here with the line to Zaporozhye, Odessa, and Crimea. Volnovakha is also crossed by the Zhdanov-Donetsk highway. Population - 25.3 thousand people.
The remains of a settlement on the northeastern outskirts of Volnovakha and a burial in a stone tomb excavated in the city indicate the settlement of the territory and surroundings of Volnovakha back in the Bronze Age. The found stone statue (“woman”) indicates the presence of nomads in this area (IX-XIII centuries). Volnovakha was founded in the early 80s of the 19th century. In connection with the construction of the Mariupol section (Elenovka-Mariupol) of the Donetsk Coal Railway, 156.1 dessiatines were cut off from the lands of the peasant community of the village of Platonovka (now part of the city). In the spring of 1880, on this site, two miles from the village, at the source of the Mokraya Volnovakha River (the right tributary of Kalmius), they began to lay a railway line, built a water pump to supply water to steam locomotives and several barracks for workers. On March 16, 1881, the foundation stone for the station took place, which, like the village later, received its name from the river - Volnovakha. On November 1, 1882, the railway section from Elenovka to Mariupol was put into operation. Trains went through Volnovakha.
During the first two decades, Volnovakha remained a small linear station. Mainly bread and other agricultural products were sent from here. The main transit cargo passing through the station to the Mariupol port was Donetsk coal. In 1891 alone, more than 11 million pounds were transported. Since the end of the 19th century. after expansion seaport and the construction of metallurgical plants in Mariupol, the volume of transit cargo transported through Volnovakha increased significantly. In this regard, in 1891, telegraph communication was established on the Mariupol-Volnovakha-Yasinovataya section, and in 1895, a small station was built at the Volnovakha station, and a year later - a locomotive depot; in 1900, second tracks were laid between the Yuzovka and Mariupol stations (via Volnovakha). On July 1, 1893, the Donetsk coal railway (Debaltsevo-Yasinovataya-Volnovakha-Mariupol) passed into the hands of the treasury, and in 1903 it was transferred to the management of the Catherine Railway.
In 1905, the Second Catherine Railway was put into operation from Dolgintsevo station through Aleksandrovsk (now Zaporozhye) and Pologi to Volnovakha. Since then, Volnovakha station has become a hub, which contributed to its faster development. Back in 1904, a new locomotive depot building for eight locomotives was built here, and in 1905 a new station was built.
But the station village, which together with the village of Platonovka was part of the Nikolaev volost of the Mariupol district of the Ekaterinoslav province, grew slowly. Even by the beginning of the 20th century, despite the expansion of the station, there were only 45 houses in Volnovakha with a population of about 250 people.
The life of railway workers was difficult. In 1883, the average salary of a railway service worker was 14.6 rubles. per month. This was not enough to feed the family. Living conditions were very bad. Since the local water pumping station supplied only process water to the station, drinking water was brought here once a week in a tank from the Sartana station.
Difficult living conditions encouraged Volnovakha workers to fight for their rights and for higher wages. Their performances were especially active during the October All-Russian political strike of 1905. On October 10, drivers, workers and employees of the locomotive depot, station and track services, and telegraph operators went on strike. The railway junction froze. The Gendarmerie Department reported to the Yekaterinoslav governor that since “October 13, train traffic between the stations of Aleksandroven and Volnovakha has been stopped.”
The events in December 1905 were even more turbulent. At the call of the Combat Strike Committee of the Catherine Railway, on December 8, a strike of railway workers of the Mariupol branch (Yasinovataya-Mariupol), which included the Volnovakha station, began. On December 9, train traffic also stopped on the Second Ekaterininskaya Railway - between the Volnovakha and Aleksandrovsk stations.
On December 15, the Cossacks dismantled the railway line between Yuzovka and Rutchenkovo in order to cut off the fighting squads’ road from Avdeevka and Yasinovataya to Volnovakha and Mariupol, and on December 17, the tsarist government declared Mariupol and other districts of the Yekaterinoslav province under martial law, abandoned the troops and suppressed the performance of the railway workers.
By 1908, the number of workers at the railway junction increased to 400 people. The station's annual cargo turnover reached 2 million poods. Some measures have been taken to expand it. In 1911, a new water supply line of 11 miles with a water tower was built. But its technical equipment remained backward. The locomotive depot had several squalid workshops with smoke-stained windows and walls. In the forge shop there were two forges, and in the mechanical shop there were several pairs of vices and one lathe, which was driven by a wheel rotated by hand. In the boiler shop, fire and smoke pipes were beaten with sledgehammers, and rivets were riveted on the boilers. The incredible roar and clanging of metal deafened people who worked 12 hours a day. Railway workers' wages remained low.
On January 1, 1915, in the station village, which was part of the Platonovskaya volost, there were 108 households and 634 residents. There was a shop, a bazaar, a small private bakery, and a long row of grain merchants' barns.
Until the beginning of the 20th century. residents of Volnovakha were deprived of medical care. In case of illness, they had to get to the village of Staroignatievki, located 25 versts from the village, where the local doctor, paramedic and midwife lived, serving the villages of six volosts. Although after 1905 an emergency room was opened at Volnovakha station, where a local doctor worked, medical care for the population remained, as before, unsatisfactory. In the first half of 1916 alone, 424 people suffered from epidemic diseases (smallpox, typhus, dysentery, etc.) in the village. All this was a consequence of difficult living conditions and malnutrition of workers and their families.
Only a few children of railway workers attended the zemstvo primary school in the village of Platonovka, opened in 1887. In 1905, after the station became a hub, the administration opened a one-class school in the village, where 28 children studied in 1906. It was located in a dilapidated one-story building, occupying only half of it; the second half housed a church. In 1908, a school for artel elders was transferred here from Debaltsevo. It was the only school on the Catherine Railway and the first in Russia that trained craftsmen (artel leaders) for the construction of railways and the expansion of station tracks. After six months of training, her students completed a two-year summer internship. More than 30 people studied there at the same time. Since 1910, road builders also began to be trained here.
First world war brought new hardships to the masses. Working hours have increased and prices have risen sharply. Hunger, devastation, and difficult working conditions increased workers' dissatisfaction with the existing system. Depot workers - M.E. Varusha, P.A. Chernyavsky, P.A. Ugryumov, who had connections with the Bolsheviks of the Mariupol factories "Nikopol" and "Providence", carried out revolutionary propaganda among railway workers. Later, in 1917, they joined the ranks of the RSDLP(b).
After the February bourgeois-democratic revolution, in March 1917, the railway workers of the Volnovakha station and the peasants of the neighboring village of Platonovki elected the Platonovsky volost Council of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies, and also sent a representative to the Mariupol County Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. In August 1917, a Red Guard detachment was created at the station, which included about 15 workers. Its core consisted of local Bolshevik railway workers P. A. Chernyavsky, M. E. Varusha, P. A. Ugryumov, S. S. Gokov and others. During the Kornilov rebellion, in August 1917, they came here to disarm the Cossack trains heading from the front to the Don, a Red Guard detachment of Mariupol workers arrived, led by the Bolsheviks S. L. Sorokin and P. T. Sergeev. Volnovakha railway workers and Red Guards also joined them.
The workers of Volnovakha greeted the news of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution with great joy. But since the Socialist Revolutionaries and Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists predominated in the volost Soviet, the establishment of Soviet power was delayed. In December 1917, by order of the Central Bureau of the Military Revolutionary Committees of Donbass, detachments of Red Guards occupied junction stations, including Volnovakha, and began to disarm the counter-revolutionary Cossack echelons making their way to the Don. With the help of the Red Guards, Soviet power was established in Volnovakha. In the last days of December 1917, re-elections of the Platonovsky volost Council of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies took place, and a revolutionary committee was created at the Volnovakha station (chaired by the Bolshevik P. A. Ugryumov). By the end of 1917, the Bolshevik group at the station had grown significantly, and at the beginning of 1918, a party cell was formed here. It included P. A. Ugryumov, P. A. Chernyavsky, S. S. Gokov, Ya. A. Dyudyun, A. G. Belous and others. The first leader of the cell was a former sailor, mechanic of the locomotive depot M. E. Varusha .
During the years of foreign military intervention and civil war, the Volnovakha railway junction, which was of great strategic importance, was more than once the object of fierce struggle. During the offensive of the Austro-German occupiers in April 1918, the Volnovakha defensive region and the Volnovakha group of the Red Army were created. Its task was to protect the area from Pologi station to Volnovakha station from the enemy. The onslaught of the invaders in this area was held back by units of the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Army and Red Army and worker detachments created by the Donbass Central Headquarters, as well as a detachment of sailors led by A.V. Polupanov.
On April 18-20, there were battles with Austro-German troops on the approaches to the station. On April 22, the invaders broke into Volnovakha. Together with the Red Army units, a group of railway workers also retreated, and some property of the junction was taken away.
Having captured the village, the occupiers established a regime of robbery and repression. Railway workers and their families were subjected to severe persecution. Livestock was requisitioned from the population and food was taken away. In June 1918, units of the 15th German and 59th Austrian divisions were stationed at the station.
The workers of Volnovakhi did not stop fighting for the restoration of Soviet power. In the summer and autumn of 1918, an underground group operated here, which included local Bolshevik workers P. A. Chernyavsky, P. A. Ugryumov, A. N. Gnatyuk, Kh. A. Marinichev and others. In the summer of 1918, an attack was committed at the station several acts of sabotage - railway workers disabled rolling stock and station tracks. In July 1918, local workers took part in the All-Ukrainian strike of railway workers.
In the fall of 1918, several partisan detachments operated in the Volnovakha area. A detachment created by a teacher from the neighboring village of Novotroitsky, M. T. Davydov, actively fought against the invaders. The partisans broke through to Volnovakha several times. Together with the railway workers, they disarmed the Austro-German soldiers and detained the occupiers' trains with military equipment and food. Soon they had to fight against the White Cossack detachments of Krasnov and the “Volunteer Army” of Denikin, who captured Mariupol in late November - early December 1918, proclaiming their power throughout the entire district, including in Volnovakha.
Throughout January-March 1919, a detachment created by depot workers fought against the White Cossacks and Denikinites. During one battle, in January 1919, punitive forces captured and shot the wounded commissar of the detachment, P. A. Chernyavsky.
At the beginning of March 1919, the troops of the Southern and Ukrainian Fronts of the Red Army fought fierce battles in the Volnovakha area against the White Guards, who concentrated large forces here. Regiments of the Trans-Dnieper division under the command of P.E. Dybenko were advancing from the west.
Local rebel groups also attacked the enemy. Between the Volnovakha and Velikoanadol stations they disabled the railway line, attacked a train that was carrying French officers to Taganrog, and a train carrying White Guards.
On March 18, 1919, units of the Trans-Dnieper division liberated Volnovakha from the enemy. A revolutionary committee was created in the village, headed by P. A. Ugryumov. The Bolshevik cell emerged from underground. But the station was always in a war zone, and the railway workers made every effort to help the Red Army. They equipped an armored train, the commander of which was the Bolshevik mechanic M.E. Varusha. The armored train team included Kh. A. Marinichev, I. E. Varusha, V. A. Dyudyun, A. E. Nelepa, T. I. Zubov, I. P. Lyubich, N. A. Novikov and others. 20 km from Volnovakha, near the Karan station, the armored train entered into battle with the White Guard armored train “Ivan Kalita” and caused significant damage to it.
In early April, General Shkuro's cavalry broke through the front in the Yuzovka area and captured Volnovakha on April 12. Denikin's men carried out brutal reprisals against those who helped the Red Army. Arrests and raids were carried out daily. On April 13, a group of workers was shot in the courtyard of a track station.
After fierce fighting, units of the Red Army liberated the station again on April 24, 1919. The Trans-Dnieper brigade of armored trains, whose teams were staffed by Baltic and Black Sea sailors, took part in these battles. The brigade commander was 19-year-old communist S. M. Lepetenko. V.V. Vishnevsky (later a famous playwright) and I.D. Papanin (later a famous Soviet polar explorer) fought in its ranks. As a result of the betrayal of Makhno, who commanded the 3rd Brigade of the Trans-Dnieper Division, on May 19, 1919, Denikin’s troops broke through the front south of Yuzovka and captured Volnovakha at the end of May. These days, a large group of Volnovakha railway workers joined the ranks of the Red Army. P. A. Ugryumov, N. A. Novikov and others died in battles with Denikin’s troops.
In Volnovakha, Denikin’s troops concentrated punitive detachments and huge warehouses of weapons and ammunition. Work stations disabled rolling stock and in every possible way prevented the departure of trains by the White Guards. Providing resistance to the enemy, in the fall of 1919, local rebel detachments fought against the White Guards in the Volnovakha area.
Units of the 13th Soviet Army of the Southern Front liberated Volnovakha from Denikin’s troops in early January 1920. During these days, a volost revolutionary committee was created in the village of Platonovka, and a military commandant was appointed at the Volnovakha station. At the end of April, the Platonovsky Volost Council was elected. Railway workers began repairing tracks, locomotives, and carriages. In February, mass cleanup days took place here. The workers organized a detachment that, together with the Red Army soldiers, actively fought against kulak banditry. In June 1920, the creation of komnezams began in the village of Platonovka and the volost.
At the beginning of 1920, the village was part of the Mariupol district, and from June - into the Yuzovsky district of the Donetsk province. In August 1920, instead of a volost, the Volnovakha subdistrict of the Yuzovsky district was created and a subdistrict executive committee was elected, and a village council was elected in the village of Platonovka. At that time, 690 people lived in Volnovakha, and 2,339 people lived in Platonovka.
Much organizational work was carried out by the station's communist cell, which resumed its activities at the beginning of 1920. At the end of August it united 10 communists. The cell was headed by former Makeevka miner P. F. Potemin. On August 11, 1920, the bureau of the Volnovakha subdistrict party committee decided to create a Komsomol cell. Its organizer was I.N. Kabuzenko, and the first Komsomol members were P. Valuev, L. Shumakov, Z. Zhemeryakina. A women's council was created in the village. The school doors opened.
In the summer of 1920, when the offensive of Wrangel's army began, the command of the Southwestern Front took measures to strengthen the defense of Donbass. In the second half of June 1920, the 1st Cavalry Corps under the command of D.P. Zhloba arrived in the Volnovakha area, and in mid-July the formation of the Second Cavalry Army under the command of O.I. Gorodovikov began here. To organize a rebuff to Wrangel, on July 14, the commander of the Southwestern Front, A. I. Egorov, and a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the front, I. V. Stalin, arrived at the station.
At the end of September, fierce battles broke out here with the Wrangel troops. Some communists and workers went to the front, and the subdistrict executive committee was transformed into a subdistrict executive committee. The party cell and the revolutionary committee provided great assistance to the Red Army in supplying it with food and fodder, and in transporting military cargo. The station was heroically defended by soldiers of the 40th Division of the 13th Army, but the enemy sent the Don Corps here and captured Volnovakha on September 26. However, Wrangel's troops held out here for only eight days. Having stopped the enemy near Yuzovka, units of the 13th Army launched a counteroffensive. On October 1-3, in the Elenovka-Velikoanadol-Volnovakha sector, Soviet armored trains No. 4, 9, 40, 58, 64 successfully fought. With bold blows, they scattered Wrangel’s cavalry and put the infantry to flight. After stubborn fighting, units of the 9th and 40th divisions liberated Volnovakha on October 5, 1920. “Despite all the wealth of equipment generously supplied by the allies, ... Baron Wrangel ... suffered a complete defeat. The valiant units of the 13th Army destroyed the avalanche of Donets and Kubans moving towards the Donetsk basin near Yuzovka and Volnovakha,” wrote M. V. Frunze in an order to the armies of the Southern Front.
The workers of the village again began to restore the destroyed economy. To strengthen the bodies of Soviet power, the Yuzovsky district committee of the CP(b)U and the district executive committee sent a group of communist workers. They became part of the Volnovakha subdistrict committee, which resumed its work on October 11, 1920. A. G. Khavikov became the chairman of the revolutionary committee. He also headed the Volnovakha Subdistrict Council of Workers, Peasants and Red Army Deputies, created in January 1921, to which 35 people were elected.
The party organization began to work, and on October 25, 1920, he was elected as a sub-district party committee headed by A. A. Koval. In October 1920, the subdistrict party organization numbered 12 communists, and at the beginning of 1921 - 23 communists.
The first years of restoration of the national economy were difficult, accompanied by devastation, famine, and excesses of the Makhnovist gangs. In January 1921, near the village of Doli, bandits brutally killed the secretary of the Volnovakha subdistrict party committee A.A. Koval and the head of the public education department of the subdistrict executive committee L.L. Ryzhkevich. Under the leadership of the Volnovakha party organization, the workers of the village courageously overcame difficulties.
At the end of April 1921, in connection with the new administrative division Volnovakha district of Yuzovsky district was created. The district committee of the Communist Party (b)U, the district executive committee, and the communists of the node cell unanimously approved the new economic policy. They did a lot of work to restore the economy under the NEP, to fight devastation and hunger. In 1921, workers of the repair and construction train began to restore the railway junction. Small and handicraft industries developed. A consumer cooperative was created in the village, several handicraft workshops, a bakery, a canteen, and a store were opened.
In December 1923, the Communists of Volnovakha strongly supported the Central Committee of the RCP(b) in its fight against the oppositionists, and the following year they unanimously approved the decisions of the XIII Party Conference and the XIII Congress of the RCP(b).
The party cell of the node in 1923 consisted of 29 communists. Replenishing itself with advanced workers, it grew to 92 people by December 1925. During Lenin's conscription alone, more than 50 workers joined the party. The Komsomol organization united 34 members of the Komsomol. There were 450 people in the trade union organization.
In 1923, Volnovakha was classified as an urban-type settlement and included in the Stretensky (renamed in October of the same year to Oktyabrsky) district of the Mariupol district. Soon, district institutions were transferred from the village of Stretenki to Volnovakha, which became the center of the Oktyabrsky district. This played a positive role in the development of the village. If in January 1923 there were 172 houses and 872 people living here, then by the time of the All-Union Population Census on December 17, 1926, there were 459 houses and 1,760 residents. Much work on the development and improvement of the village was carried out by the Volnovakha Village Council. In 1927, it consisted of 36 deputies: 22 workers, 11 employees, 3 peasants, including 15 communists and 3 Komsomol members. There was a hospital, a medical station, and a pharmacy in the village. Construction of a new hospital building has begun. Back in 1920 they opened primary school, orphanage, in 1925 - a seven-year school. In May 1924, a pioneer organization was created at the Volnovakha school. In the same year, two political schools and an educational school operated in the village and at the station. 90 percent workers subscribed to the magazine “Bolshevik”, newspapers “Pravda”, “Gudok”, etc. At the railway workers’ club. K. Marx organized a Lenin corner, circles of atheists, workers' correspondents, drama, choir and others, a wall newspaper was published, and a library with a reading room operated.
The labor activity of the population increased. Already in 1924, the station's cargo turnover reached two-thirds of the pre-war level.
The Volnovakha railway junction developed especially rapidly during the years of industrialization of the country. Railway workers received and began to master new steam locomotives and heavy-duty cars produced by the domestic industry. A movement for austerity and rationalization of production developed. By 1929, the station's cargo turnover increased 3.3 times compared to 1913 and amounted to 106,371 tons. In 1927, a power plant was built here. In 1929, at the call of the party organization, the workers of the village joined the competition of shock brigades. The Komsomol organization of the node, numbering 150 people, created detachments of “light cavalry”. By February 1930, all workers and employees joined the shock brigades, and Volnovakha soon became a shock railway junction.
In 1930, the peasants of Volnovakha and the village of Platonovka united into the collective farm “Cultural Revolution”, the first chairman of which was the Mariupol worker of twenty-five thousand F. S. Rudas. The working people of Volnovakha fought energetically to fulfill the five-year plans. Already by mid-1932, on a unit of 27 steam locomotives, 26 were transferred to self-financing. The depot drivers brought the average daily mileage of a steam locomotive, which was 63 km at the beginning of 1931, to 153 km. The number of “sick” locomotives by this time had decreased from 33 to 12.5 percent, and the downtime of cars - from 29.5 to 13.9 percent. The best results were achieved by the locomotive brigades of the communist I. E. Varusha and I. I. Burchenko, who fulfilled the locomotive mileage plan by 148 percent. and saved 20 percent. fuel. Komsomol members held several subbotniks and ten-day days, and carriage workers took part in the all-Union competition for the best carriage fleet. During the Second Five-Year Plan, the reconstruction of the site began. In 1933-1934 built and equipped new locomotive and carriage depots with the latest technology, also built a mechanized hill for forming trains, a new powerful power plant, office premises, improved water supply, fully electrified the unit. To participate in the reconstruction of the site, about 500 Komsomol construction workers arrived in Volnovakha on vouchers from the Central Committee of the LKSMU. By the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, many facilities were put into operation ahead of schedule. At the Second Donetsk Regional Party Conference, held in January 1934, it was noted that “the Komsomol members brought the Volnovakha station to the front lines.” In 1934, the Volnovakha junction became an exemplary one and took first place in the competition of railway stations in the country.
Since 1935, the station became the center of the Volnovakha branch of the South Donetsk Railway. Powerful domestic FD locomotives began to arrive here. Having mastered them, drivers F.Z. Dyrman, S.D. Vinsky, M.P. Mikhalko and others already in 1936 brought the average daily mileage of a steam locomotive to 247 km. A movement of followers of P. F. Krivonos began in the locomotive depot. The initiator of high-speed train driving at the junction was the communist F.Z. Dyrman. For his achievements in work, he was the first among the workers of the Volnovakha branch to be awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. In 1940-1941 communists P. M. Chichikov, I. E. Varusha, S. D. Vinsky, T. I. Mokry, F. P. Chernyavsky and others brought the average daily mileage of a steam locomotive to 360 km, fulfilling the norm by 133-135 percent. On the eve of the war, over 2 thousand workers worked at the site.
During the years of the first five-year plans, a number of enterprises appeared in Volnovakha, including a bakery and a soft drink factory. The mill in Platonovka was reconstructed, a construction site and a convoy were created. The household workshops of the district industrial plant opened, the district food processing plant and printing house began to operate. Back in August 1930, the Oktyabrsky district was renamed Volnovakha, and eight years later the center of the district, the village of Volnovakha, was classified as a city of regional subordination. The city included the neighboring villages of Platonovka and Karlovka, where the collective farms “Cultural Revolution” and “Chervony Partisan” were located. In 1939, 15,261 people lived in Volnovakha.
The city developed and was improved. During the pre-war five-year plans, two new high schools, a hospital, a kindergarten and kindergarten, a factory-kitchen, a stadium, more than 100 residential buildings, including 19 multi-storey buildings, and a hostel for young workers were built.
Great changes have occurred in the field of medical care and in the cultural life of the population. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, two hospitals and a clinic operated in Volnovakha. There were two secondary and seven-year schools, in which 87 teachers taught about 2 thousand students, the district House of Culture named after. V.I. Lenin, Palace of Culture of Railway Workers named after. K. Marx, built in 1936, three libraries. About 20 shops and 3 canteens were opened. Since January 1932, the regional newspaper “For Bolshovitsky Tempi” was published.
The district party organization on January 1, 1941 numbered 957 communists, united in 54 primary party organizations. Most of the communists (more than 520 people) worked in transport, enterprises and institutions of the city, where 28 primary party organizations were created. In May 1941, 250 communists worked at the railway junction alone. The Komsomol organization of the district grew from 1,040 people in 1932 to 2,840 in 1940.
The settlement was founded as a railway station in 1881 during construction Catherine's Railway. At the beginning of the 20th century. in Volnovakha there were 45 households, about 250 people lived. By 1915 there were 108 households and 634 inhabitants. There was a shop, a bazaar, a private bakery, and a school.
In 1895, a station was built at the station, in 1896 a locomotive depot, and in 1900, second tracks were laid between Yuzovka and Mariupol through Volnovakha.
By 1905 the station became a junction. In 1908, the school of artel elders was transferred to Volnovakha from Debaltsevo, the first school in Russia for training craftsmen (artel elders) for the construction of railways. The development of the railway junction and the village was facilitated by the industrialization of the country. During the first five-year plans, a bakery, a soft drink factory, a food processing plant, and a printing house were built.
Volnovakha received city status in 1938. Its population in 1939 was 15.3 thousand people. There were two secondary and seven-year schools, two hospitals, a clinic, a kindergarten, a stadium, a factory-kitchen, a Palace of Culture, three libraries, and about 20 shops. Within the city there were two collective farms and a state farm.
In the years after the Great Patriotic War, Volnovakha became a major center of the food industry and construction industry.
