Alexandrovsk-Grushevsky, county town, Cherkasy district, region of the Don Troops.
The first settlements on the territory of the city appeared in 1805 (Hutora Popovsky and Vlasovsky). The main city-forming value was the Grushevsky mine, at which in the thirties of the 19th century there was a settlement of Grushevka, legalized in 1867 under the name of the Hrushevsky mountain settlement.
The destruction of the Cossack monopoly on coal mining on the Don, the construction of a railway, the use of steam pumping and lifting machines at the mines, the formation of the Hrushevsky mountain settlement in 1856-1867 contributed to an increase in the population of Grushevka. In 1883, the Hrushevsky mountain settlement was transformed into the city of Alexandrovsk-Grushevsky, with the introduction of a simplified city administration, which in 1900 was replaced by the city Duma and city government.
In 1914, the population was 54,000, almost doubling from 1897. The main occupation of the population was mining, which in 1917 employed more than 14 thousand people. In 1916, ten of the largest mines in the Grushevsko-Vlasovsky district produced 90.5 million poods of coal.
Before the revolution, the city had a railway, telegraph, telephone, electricity, water supply, post office, hospitals, pharmacies, a cathedral, gymnasiums, libraries, cinemas, a newspaper, a city garden. With large mines and the railway station, the settlements that formed the suburb of Alexandrovsk-Grushevsky were formed early.
In 1917, when the city government changed three times (SRs, Bolsheviks, Cossacks), the city experienced severe trials, which continued the following year (the Red Terror). After the liberation of the city on April 28, 1918, parts of the Northern detachment of the Don Army led by Colonel A.P. Fitzkhelaurov from the Bolsheviks restored city self-government and he became part of the All-Great Don Army.
For twenty months there were no Bolsheviks, but life was difficult. The main problems: the city budget deficit, the epidemic of typhus, the disruption of transport and supply, overcrowding of evacuees and military units, the threat of Bolshevik invasion.
In December 1919, in connection with the evacuation of the whites to the south of Russia, the city government ceased its activities. Soviet power was established on December 25, 1919 in the old style. In 1920, the population of the city and the suburbs was 38,179 people, the mines were in an unworkable state. In February, the Donetsk Provincial Revolutionary Committee renamed Alexandrovsk-Grushevsky the city of Shakhty. Since then, a new era in the history of the city begins.
In the first half of the twenties of the last century, the city existed in survival mode (excesses of war communism, famine and devastation), but later a large construction was deployed. In 1925-1930, radio broadcasting, aeroclub, a district polyclinic, new water supply and power station, a theater, a labor department, a medical technician and a pedal technician appeared.
At the same time, everything that carried information about the past was destroyed. The number of indigenous people, especially intellectuals, has been significantly reduced. The twenties did not survive most of the churches, archives, libraries, city cemetery. Streets, overflows, squares, villages and mines received new names. But the memory couldn't be destroyed.
Today it is clear that before the revolution Aleksandrovsk-Grushevsky was a developing city with a normal ecological and demographic situation. At the same time, he was inferior to other Don cities in terms of improvement. This, however, is not surprising if we remember that he was young, with a peasant population, with little land (and therefore with a weak budget), and large merchants and industrialists who had mines at Grushevka lived in Rostov and Novocherkassk.
The historical core of the city are the streets of Shevchenko, Soviet, Lenin, Proletarskaya and Workers-Krestyanskaya (old names: Pushkinskaya, Bolshaya, Alexandrovskaya, Krivaya and Zagorodnaya) and alleys located between the Grushevka River and the railway.
A number of civil architecture buildings have survived, built mainly in the early 20th century. Documentary, literary and photographic material on the history of the city is stored in archives, libraries, museums and private collections of Rostov, Novocherkassk and the city of Shakhty. To preserve the memory of Alexandrovsk-Grushevsky in the past, Rostov local historian M.B. Krasnyansky (+1944) did a lot.
