The City Emblem The emblem of the city of Lugansk was approved by Nickolas II on April 22, 1903. It was not used in 1918 - 1992 and was readopted by Lugansk City Council in February 1992. The blast furnace symbolizes the iron foundry from which the town sprang. The black hammers are symbols of labor. Nine six-pointed stars represent the nine largest cities of the region. The letter "E" stands for Yekaterinoslav Gouvernement. The red ribbon around the shield was taken from the Order of St.Andrew, the patron saint of Ukraine. The gray kirks are a symbol of the Donets Basin and the gray brick crown is a symbol of creative building.

Before 1938 the territory of the present Lugansk region was a part of Donetsk region. By the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR the territory was separated from Donetsk region on June 3, 1938. Lugansk region included at that time four cities and 28 districts with the population of 1,837,000 inhabitants.

Lugansk (pronounced in Ukrainian as Luhansk) region is situated in eastern Ukraine and borders on the Russian Federation in the east , the north and the south. The total length of the state border in our region is about 700 km. The river Seversky Donets, the tributary of the Don, a great Russian river, divides the territory of the region into two parts - the northern and the southern one. The northern part of the region is mainly agricultural and the southern one is famous for its industrial centers.

Lugansk region has neighborly relations with three Russian regions: Belgorod, Voronezh and Rostov. It also borders on Donetsk region in the west and south- west and on Kharkiv region in the north-west. The territory of the region has the following geographical limits:

Latitude 47° 49' N - 50° 05' N
longitude 37° 52' E - 40° 12' E.

Lugansk region stretches for over 270 km ( about 146 miles) from the north to the south and for 170 km ( about 92 miles) from the west to the east.

The geographical position of the region is very favorable. It occupies a well-developed agricultural territory and it has neighbors with advanced economy. The positive features of the geographical location of Lugansk region are following:

• direct railroad connection with Moscow (1011 km - 546 miles), Kiev, Simferopol, Odessa, Lviv and other Ukrainian and Russian cities;
• proximity to very important raw material areas such as : the Dnipro area, the Russian Black Soil area, the Northern Caucasus;
• proximity to large-scale industrial regions and centers (Russian Industrial Center, Kharkiv, Rostov).

Transit main lines connecting Ukraine with Russia and bringing it closer to the world market pass through the territory of the region: Volgograd - Kharkiv railroad, Volgograd - Kharkiv highway, Moscow - Rostov highway, gas-main from Stavropol (Northern Caucasus) and Orenburg (Siberia), oil pipelines from the Volga area and from the Northern Caucasus.

Advanced transport system, proximity to markets and raw material areas, high density of the population created favorable background for the economic progress of Lugansk region as compared to other Ukrainian regions.

Lugansk is not only a beautiful city with parks, public gardens and memorial places, but also one of the largest industrial centers of Ukraine. Its enterprises has been unique and famous all over the Soviet Union and abroad: machine-building factory, diesel-locomotive-building factory, textile factory and others. Lugansk is famous for its institutes and universities: the East-Ukrainian National University, Shevchenko State Pedagogical University, State Agricultural University, State Medical University, Institute of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs of Ukraine. The KVN team ("Club of the Jolly and the Resourceful) of the Pedagogical University has become famous all over the Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries. Lugansk is the home city of many outstanding people. Vladimir Dahl, the author of "The Defining Dictionary of the Great Living Russian Language", a close friend of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, was born in Lugansk on November 22, 1801.

According to the archeological data, the first settlements on the territory of the region appeared about 100 thousand years ago. In the 3rd-1st centuries B.C. the endless steppes of the territory were settled by Sarmathians, Iranian-speaking cattle-breeding tribes . The Alanians, the descendants of the Sarmathians and the Bulgarians, Turkish-speaking tribes, inhabited the territory afterwards.

During the 9th-13th centuries other Turkish-speaking nomads ( the Pechenegs, the Turks, the Polovians) inhabited the basin of the Seversky Donets) In the first half of the 13th century the Tatar-Mongols conquered these lands and controlled them for over two centuries.

At the end of the 15th century Ukrainian and Russian people began to colonize these lands. They built a lot of watch-towers along the Seversky Donets and other rivers . The number of settlers increased in the 17th century when a lot of new villages and settlements were founded, among them are Byelolutsk, Novopskov, Svatovo.

In the 18th and 19th centuries Russian landowners got lands on the territory of the region. In the first half of the 18th century deposits of iron ore, coal and other minerals were discovered on the territory of the region and their mining began.

In 1795 the construction of an iron foundry started on the banks of the Luganka. It was the beginning of the city of Lugansk. Lugansk factory produced cannons for the Russian Black Sea Navy. The industrial boom caused a considerable re-settlement of peasants from other Ukrainian regions and from the Russian black soil areas.

The abolition of serfdom in 1861 accelerated the industrial development. New settlements, factories and railroads were built. In 1900 locomotive-building factory was dedicated which soon became Russia's biggest factory of such kind. Now it is a diesel-locomotive-building factory whose products are known in many countries of the world.

Translated by Victor Khorishko
"Partners in Education" alumnus.