Peter Dick’s Steam Mill
Peter Dick’s Steam Mill
New York, Donetsk region Peter Dick’s Steam Mill

One of the biggest steam mills in the German Mennonite colony that existed in the Donetsk region at the turn of the 20th century. Built in 1903, this mill had been feeding people of New York and all of its suburbs for decades.

Location:
New York, Donetsk region
Official status:
Monument of industrial architecture of the beginning of the XX century
Type:
Mill
Constructed:
1903
Date of destruction:
09.05.2022
Weapon:
Artillery
History

Before May 9, 2022. Photo: donmining.info

The Unger Brickyard, the Ham Brothers Bookstore, and the Unger and Dick Banking Office exemplify New York of the early 20th century. No, not the one where the Statue of Liberty greets the city’s guests. This is Ukrainian New York, an urban-type settlement in the Donetsk region. Ukrainian Cossack warriors founded it in the 18th century as a winter settlement. In 1892, German Mennonites created the New York colony here.

 

Mennonite Protestants in Europe have historically opposed the state and refused to serve in the military. They desired to labour quietly and abide by God’s law. That is why they looked for land where they could fulfil these aspirations. That was how Mennonites from Holland and Germany ended up in the Zaporizhzhia region and then settled down in other lands nearby. The authorities gave them land and exempted settlers from military service and taxes.

 

According to the 1897 census, the German population in the modern Ukrainian southern lands amounted to 350,000 people. German colonists created three fully autonomous communities: Khortytska, Molochanska, and Mariupolska. Wherever they lived, manufactories, light industry production, and warehouses were established, as well as agriculture and infrastructure developed.

 

New York perfectly reflected this pattern. In addition to the mentioned brick factory and bank offices, a school, a girls’ gymnasium, tile factories, an agricultural machinery and tools production factory were opened here. Also, steam mills were constructed. In particular, Peter Dick’s 4-storey mill, erected in 1903, stood out among others and became one of the largest in the colony.

After May 9, 2022. Photo: freeradio.com.ua

This mill supplied all of New York’s suburbs with flour, which may explain why the structure has endured for almost 120 years. Peter Dick’s mill is the only one of the six mills in the city to have withstood the test of time. It was also to the credit of New Yorkers who did not allow the retreating Red Army to blow up the mill at the beginning of World War II.

 

The structure survived both the temporary occupation in 2014 when Russia launched a military invasion of Donbas and the threat of dismantling in 2019. However, the mill, recognized as a monument of industrial architecture of the early 20th century, did not survive a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. On May 8, the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation, when all of Europe commemorates the victims of Nazism, Russian troops destroyed the architectural monuments in New York’s historic area with missiles and incendiary shells. The Russian missile also struck Peter Dick’s mill, and the building burned out.

 

Peter Dick’s mill once made Ukrainian New York famous. It continued feeding people during revolutions, world wars, and the dark times of Soviet occupation. Now it stands burned and desolated.

 

The site that once held memories may now turn into a memory itself.

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