into reparation servitude from the Danube Schwabian communities Schwowe of Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania (the Batschka and Banat) and worked under extreme hardship to rebuild Stalino and to labour in its mines. Many died from disease and malnutrition.
During Nikita Khrushchev's second wave of destalinization in November 1961 the city was renamed Donetsk, after the Seversky Donets River, a tributary of the Don in order to distance it from the former leader Joseph Stalin.
In 1965, the Donetsk Academy of Sciences was established as part of the Academy of Science of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1970, Donetsk was recognised by UNESCO as the cleanest industrial town of the world. Donesk was granted the Order of Lenin in 1979.
After experiencing a tough time in the 1990s, when it was the centre of gang wars for control over industrial enterprises, Donetsk has modernised quickly in recent years, largely under the influence of big companies.
Residents of the city tend to be conservative in their political beliefs. This came out during the 2004 presidential election, in which the city mostly voted for candidate Viktor Yanukovych, which had been announced as the winner of the election by the Central Election Commission. The vote was later revoked by the court. This led to an election re-run, thus making Yanukovych lose the election. During the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary elections, the Yanukovych-led Party of Regions also won most of the votes from the region
