The region was settled in 1778 at the confluence of the Sevostyanivka and Orlova Rivers (which drain into the
Mius River) by runaway
serfs from southern Russia and Ukraine. By 1800 the settlement, with 225 residents, was known as the
sloboda Oleksiivka after a son of landowner and founder S. Leonov. From 1840 it was named
Oleksiieve-Leonove, and from 1868
Chystiakove. By the 1860s the town, now known as Chystiakove for a merchant and owner of a local manor, was a coal-mining hub. In 1875, two mining companies were founded: Chystiakovs'ke (which operated two coal mines) and Oleksiivs'ke, which was renamed Nadiya in 1907. The mines produced 4.7 million pounds of coal in 1909, and 76.8 million pounds by 1916. In 1924 the Chystiakove mining industry had 142 settlements, with a total of 44,679 residents. Eight years later the settlements became a town, and the town's ten coal-mining quarries were incorporated into the Chystyakovugol Industrial Trust a year after that. During the 1940s, the town had three administrative districts: • Chervona Zirka (Red Star) • Pivdenna Grupa (Southern Group) • Chystiakove Station (Railway) During
World War II, Chystiakove was occupied by the
German Army from
31 October 1941 to
2 September 1943. In 1942, the Germans operated the Stalag 385
prisoner-of-war camp in the town, which was then relocated to
Nikopol. In 1964 Chystiakove was renamed Torez in honor of
Maurice Thorez, the longtime leader of the
French Communist Party who purported in his autobiography to have been a coal miner. In 2012, the city's population was 81,761, down from a 1970 peak of about 120,000. In mid-April 2014
pro-Russian separatists captured several towns in Donetsk Oblast, including Chystiakove in June 2014. On 17 July,
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, en route to
Kuala Lumpur from
Amsterdam, was hit by a Russian
Buk surface-to-air missile launched from separatist-controlled territory. The plane crashed near Chystiakove and all 298 people aboard were killed. == Demographics ==