Siversk

Siversk (Сіверськ, ; Северск), formerly known as Yama (Яма) until 1973, is a small city in Bakhmut Raion, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. Its economy has traditionally been based around the mining and processing of dolomite. In January 2022, it had an estimated population of

During the Russo-Ukrainian War, it has been a site of repeated fighting, accelerating the economic and demographic downturn the city has suffered since the 1990s. The 2022 battle of Siversk during the Russian invasion of Ukraine has destroyed much of the city, and only about 1,000 people remain in the city as of July 2023.

It is the administrative center of Siversk urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine.

Geography
Siversk is located in the historical, cultural, and economic Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. It is located 36 km northeast of Bakhmut. Siversk lies at the bottom of a lowland, in a river valley, surrounded on all sides by smaller settlements.

Preceding settlements
Archeologists have discovered human settlements on the territory of modern Siversk dating back to the Stone Age. At different times throughout history, the area has been inhabited by Sarmatians, Goths, Huns, Avars, Alans, Bulgarians, Slavs, Khazars and Cumans. The land was conquered by the Mongol Empire during the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' in the mid-13th century.

In the 16th century, the land on the banks of the Siversky Donets river was colonized by the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks. They made several small settlements, including one named Shokovy Yar. Shovkovy Yar would go on to evolve into the villages of Chornohorivka and Stary Mlyn. After the liquidation of the Zaporozhian Sich in the late 18th century, Catherine the Great began a program by which large numbers of Eastern Orthodox residents of the Ottoman Empire and the Austrian Empire were resettled in the Donbas region. This colony was known as Slavo-Serbia. Stary Mlyn became the property of nobleman Rajko Preradović, and the settlement was named Radivonivka after him. This name later evolved into another name, Rodionivka.

On the bank of the Kamianka (tributary of the Bakhmutka) river, a tributary of the Bakhmutka, a village named Kamianske was founded, named after the river. In 1881, an agricultural school was opened in Kamianske. Volodymyr Sosiura would study at this school. In 1910, the Yama railway station was built.

Founding and 20th century history


In 1913, a dolomite plant was built near the station, to process dolomite from the nearby mine. This year is generally considered to be the "official" year of the founding of Siversk. The same year, a worker's settlement named Yama was founded, on the bank of the Yama (river, Ukraine) river. Workers of the mine and the railway station lived in the settlement. The toponym Yama literally means "pit", in reference to the deep river valley.

The settlements were occupied by the Central Powers during the 1918 Central Powers invasion of Ukraine, and locals fought back as partisans. The area saw fighting during the Russian Civil War before eventually being captured by the Bolsheviks, who incorporated it into the Soviet Union. The oldest surviving school was built in Siversk in 1927.

The area saw fighting again during World War II. On 27 January 1950, most of the disparate minor settlements - including Rodionivka and Chornohorivka - were merged into Yama. The worker's settlement near the dolomite mine was excluded from this, instead becoming the settlement Dolomitne. Yama was part of Yama Raion until 10 September 1959, when the raion was abolished, and its territory, including Yama, was merged into Artemivsk Raion.

Yama received city status in 1961, and was renamed to Siversk on 2 August 1973. The name "Siversk" is derived from the Siversky Donets river. In 1980, a museum was opened about Volodymyr Sosiura, the poet who had visited the area.

In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Siversk experienced the economic decline that affected many countries of the former USSR. The dolomite plant was closed in 2008 after the exhaustion of the resources in the mine. The local farm went bankrupt, and the economy entered a depression. The population began to decline, leading to Siversk becoming "a hopelessly subsidized city of pensioners."

Russo-Ukrainian War


In April 2014, during the beginnings of the war in Donbas, pro-Russian separatists seized control of several cities and towns in the Donbas, including Siversk. Among the militants was the Prizrak Brigade led by Aleksey Mozgovoy. Ukrainian forces approached the city and began to encircle it, forcing the separatists to flee. On 10 July 2014, Ukrainian forces secured the town from the separatists. As they fled, the Prizrak Brigade stole one of the city's two fire trucks. City council member Olena Rudenko later managed to get in touch with Mozgovoy, who agreed to return the fire truck. Rudenko's husband had to ride to the meeting point on a moped due to taxi drivers refusing to drive near the frontline. The vehicle was given back "burnt, battered, barely running". As the Siversk residents drove it back, they were reportedly shot at by the separatists, who had belatedly realized that they had accidentally left some weapons inside.

Despite the end of actual fighting in the city itself, the trend of economic and population decline accelerated, and the city remained a "war zone" for the remainder of the war in Donbas, though most of the residents of the city did not flee at the time. As of 2016, Siversk was located about 50 km from the frontline.

During the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in 2022, Siversk became a frontline city in the fighting again. In July 2022, the battle of Siversk began between Ukrainian forces and Russia, allied with its proxy separatist forces. The Russian goal was to break through to nearby Bakhmut by taking Siversk, as well as minor nearby settlements like Verkhniokamianske. Siversk itself fell into humanitarian crisis, with running water and electricity services being shut down and most buildings damaged. 70% of buildings in the city were reportedly in "ruins". However, Russian forces failed to ever actually reach the city by 20 July. After Ukraine's 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive, a United States military official said on 12 September that Russia was moving its focus from Siversk to its attacks on Bakhmut.

On 28 June 2023, Siversk officially launched a sister city program with Weston, Connecticut. Siversk has not recovered from the war damage, with only about 1,000 residents remaining in the city as of July 2023.

Economy
The main economy of Siversk has traditionally been dolomite mining and processing since 1913, until 2008 when the mines were exhausted. The mineral was used in metallurgy, construction, and the chemical industry, and it was the main source of income to the city.

Siversk also contains the "Yamskyi" state farm, a milk factory, and a sewing factory.

Education
As of 1970, Siversk had two secondary schools, a primary school, a boarding school, a music school, and an agricultural school. There were eight kindergartens and nurseries, and four libraries. However, by 2016, there were only three schools left.

Infrastructure
Public transport in the city is minimal. There is one bus that travels in a loop around the city, and "if it breaks down, passengers walk". Ukrainian media have said that the Ukrainian joke about roads in eastern Ukraine having been "bombed even before the war" applies to Siversk.

Demographics
As of the 2001 Ukrainian census, the population was 14,393 people, 76.7% of whom spoke Ukrainian as their native language. 81.23% of the residents identified as ethnic Ukrainians, 16.95% claimed to be Russian. The town is home to various smaller ethnic minorities, such as Belarusians, which account for roughly 1% of the population, as well as Greeks, Georgians and Azerbaijanis. The population has been declining since the 1990s, a trend which has greatly accelerated since the beginning of the war with Russia. After the destructive battle of Siversk in 2022, there were large-scale evacuations, and only about 1,000 people remain in the city as of July 2023.