History of Lugansk Ukraine / Early Slavic and Scythian Settlements

Dnieper-Donets culture

5000-3000 BC

The first inhabitants of Lugansk were hunter-gatherer tribes known collectively as the “Dnieper-Donets” culture. Artifacts establishing their presence date back to 5000 BC. Families lived in shelters made of mammoth tusk and various animal skins. Tools were made from both stone and copper. Pottery was extensively produced and is frequently extracted during archeology digs. Due to the moist soil, few remain intact. The Dnieper-Donets people are thought to have spoken an indo-European, proto-Slavic language, a theory that heavily relies on third party accounts and migratory patterns.

Cimmerians

800-700 BC

In popular culture, Cimmerians are known as Conan the Barbarian’s people, who were nearly wiped out by the army of Thusla Doom. In reality, they are an obscure, nomadic ethnic group whose origins are believed to be in the northern Black Sea region, precisely where Lugansk is located. Their greatest collective achievement is defeating the army of Sargon II, King of the Assyrian Empire, the most powerful nation on earth in those days.

Not long after winning a key battle against the Assyrians, an outbreak of Black Death decimated the Cimmerian population. They were forced to retreat from what is today Northern Iraq and Turkey, back to their original terrority - the Lugansk Oblast. What happened next is unknown. Most scholars believe they were slowly absorbed by a stronger, neighboring culture.

Scythians

600 BC – 300 AD

Their horse-mounted warriors harassed the civilized Greeks and Persians for centuries. While not pillaging, they traded in wheat, animal skins, and people. Scythians were semi-nomadic, living in a swath of territory from what is now Romania, and sweeping south through to the Caucuses mountains. Most of them though, were concentrated around the north Black Sea region, for reasons of trade. Annoyed by their constant raids into Persian territory, where they soiled local women and stole livestock, King Darius sent his armies to destroy the Scythians, and managed to eliminate their presence from Northern Iran and the Caucuses. As their culture evolved, Scythians began to rely less on killing and stealing, and more on trade and the production of fine goods. Some of the most beautiful gold jewelry of ancient times was found in Scythian burial mounds.

Slavs

500 AD to present

Slavic history is well documented, compared to that of earlier inhabitants of Ukraine. By the 7th century AD, waves of Slavic people migrated to the Black Sea region, pushing out or absorbing all remnants of ancient Scythia and Cimmeria. By 1000 AD these loosely knit bands coalesced to form the Kieven Rus’ dynasty, a powerful kingdom of medieval Europe. It was also during that time, that Ukrainian Slavs adopted Orthodox Christianity.

Mongols invaded in the 13th century and decimated all of Ukraine. Kiev was razed to the ground. Pretty girls were taken by Mongol warlords as slave brides, or sent to the Middle East for auction. Those who survived the initial onslaught fled north to what was then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Lugansk became a Mongol fiefdom, and remained subservient until Cossacks liberated all of Ukraine from both the Mongols, and the Polish crown.

During Soviet times, Russians immigrated to Lugansk to work in coal mines and factories. Pay was much higher than in other fields of employment and attracted millions. By the 1970s, Lugansk was 90% ethnically Russian and remains so until this day. Ukrainian is rarely heard on the streets, and shopkeepers defiantly label prices as “rubles” rather than in the Ukrainian currency, the “hrivna”. Many political scholars believe the Ukraine will eventually split in two along ethnic lines, with the eastern half, including Lugansk, merging with Russia.