Kamianske

Kamianske (known as Dniprodzerzhynsk from 1936 to 2016) owes its urban and industrial transformation to Belgian enterprise. Originally an agrarian Cossack settlement on the banks of the Dnipro River, the town's destiny changed dramatically in 1887 with the founding of the South-Russian Dnieper Metallurgical Society (Société Métallurgique Dniéprovienne), financed predominantly by Belgian investors alongside French and Polish partners.

Between 1887 and 1889, Belgian engineers constructed the Dnieper Metallurgical Plant, taking advantage of Kamianske’s location along the newly opened Catherine Railway that linked Kryvbas iron ore with Donbas coal. The facility rapidly expanded into one of the largest metallurgical complexes in the region, setting technological benchmarks for pig iron and steel production. To house the influx of foreign specialists and local workers, the Belgian administration established distinct, planned urban districts known as the Upper and Lower Colonies (Verkhnya i Nyzhnya Koloniyi). These neighborhoods featured European Neoclassical and Industrial Gothic architecture, complete with director mansions, technical schools, a hospital, parks, and the majestic Catholic Church of Saint Nicholas (1897), which served the city's large Belgian and Polish diaspora.

Following the Bolshevik takeover, the plant was nationalized, renamed after Soviet secret police founder Felix Dzerzhinsky, and integrated into state heavy industrial plans, effectively erasing its Belgian founding roots from official narratives. The restoration of the city's historic name, Kamianske, in 2016 re-anchored the community to its origins, where the surviving red-brick architecture of the Upper Colony and Saint Nicholas Church remain key physical links to Ukraine’s Belgian industrial heritage.