Te death of Stalin and the gradual move towards less totalitarian rule from Moscow saw yet another name- change, this time to Donetsk (Nikita Khrushchev was a local boy). Peace brought gradual improvements for the miners, the industrial elite of Donbas* (the coal-mining region round Donetsk, along the Donets riv- er). Tey became one of the highest- paid categories in the USSR. When the 1990s dawned they were influ- ential actors in the social turmoil which was engulfing the dying Soviet Union, travelling to Moscow to bang their safety helmets on the pavement outside the Kremlin as a vivid way

*Donets Basin, also known as Donbas or Don- bass (Ukrainian: Донецький басейн, usually abbreviated to Донбас; translit. Donetskyi ba- sin or Donbas; Russian: Донецкий бассейн, likewise usually shortened to Донбасс; trans- lit. Donetskiy basin or Donbas), is a histori- cal, economic and cultural region of eastern Ukraine. It combines three oblasts (provinces) in the east of the country: the easternmost part of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast around the city of Pavlohrad (the so-called “Western Donbas”), the northern and central parts of Donetsk Oblast (the southern part is Pryazovia) and the southern part of Luhansk Oblast (the northern part is Slobozhanschyna). Te city of Donetsk is considered the unofficial capital of Donbas. Source: Wikipedia

of driving home their demands for a better life: health care, accommoda- tion, recreation and leisure facilities, pensions – and of course more pay. Te more the miners were owed in back pay, the oſtener they gathered in Red Square. Nor was Moscow their only target, as Oleg Varfolomeyev wrote in 2002:*

“Miners’ marches on Kyiv have almost become a tradition of the Ukrainian summer. Tey block the main streets, sit down in front of the government building, bang their helmets and plastic bottles on the pavement, get promised their wages, and then return home. Aſter some time, wage arrears begin to accumulate anew.”

Te miners of Donbas had earned their laurels the hard way, and few harder than Alexey Stakhanov, the eponymous Stakhanovist. He worked in a coal mine in the Don- bas town of Kadiyivka, and on 31 August 1935 was reported to have mined a record 102 tonnes in 5 hours and 45 minutes, 14 times

*Transitions Online 5 December 2002 7