Donetsk Soda Plant

"Donsoda" was founded here at the end of the 19th century by the Belgian industrialist Ernest Solvay, because there were huge reserves of coal, salt and sand nearby. An important waterway also flowed nearby - the Siverskyi Donets River, from which the plant got its name.

The Solvay company, by the way, still exists today, not least thanks to the capital earned in the Luhansk region at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Now "Solvay S.A." is a chemical giant with its head office in Brussels and representative offices in many countries. This company remembers its Ukrainian roots and how the Bolsheviks "squeezed" their plant. Belgium, by the way, was one of the last to recognize the USSR - precisely because of the illegal nationalization of their property.

In Lysychansk there is something that distinguishes it from other industrial cities not only in Luhansk Oblast, but also in Eastern Ukraine in general - preserved historical buildings, which are more than 120 years old. They are scattered on the hills near the former Donetsk Soda Plant, which closed in 2011.

Unfortunately, the most striking building - the factory hospital - has been abandoned for many years, but it is impressive even in this condition. Due to the large amount of architectural heritage, Lysychansk received an award from Belgium in 2017 - as the city with the greatest heritage of this country outside its borders.

These buildings were able to survive the eventful 20th century. Unfortunately, the great invasion of the Russian Federation hit Lysychansk and its historical buildings hard. Currently, the city is almost destroyed and occupied. It is known that some Belgian buildings, such as the gymnasium and the tuberculosis clinic, were destroyed by the Russians. There were many attacks on the residential sector, so only after de-occupation will it be clear what survived this war and what did not.