Today, only such collectibles souvenirs from auctions serve as a reminder that in 2012, #Donetsk was one of the host cities for EURO 2012 and people could fly there from all over the world.

[kravietz@agora.echelon.pl]

Today, only such collectibles souvenirs from auctions serve as a reminder that in 2012, #Donetsk was one of the host cities for EURO 2012 and people could fly there from all over the world.

And it turned out that, all things considered, for the people of Donetsk, the world doesn’t end at Rostov, Moscow and industrial plants 100% controlled by the local mafia.

Back then, I was still driving from #Poland through the #Ukraine including #Donbas to the #Caucasus, and seeing the non-stop renovations of roads, hotels and stadiums that had been going on since 2011, I thought that even there, things were changing for the better.

And I suppose that was precisely the moment when #Putin realised that Ukraine and the Donbas might slip away from him towards economic independence, so he decided to restore everything to the default state of the classic ‘Russkiy Mir’ – that is, squalor, poverty and unemployment, in which the Soviet man is 100% dependent on the state. If not that, no sane person with stable job and pension would voluntarily sign a contract with Russian army to participate in "meat wave" attacks on another country - poverty was the primary requirement here.

Reading what Girking's thugs are doing on the "border" of "Donetsk People's Republic" I've never attempted crossing that route after 2013...