Wales and Ukraine met in the most unlikely of circumstances when Liliya Revenko, a teacher from Ukraine, contacted Welsh author Colin Thomas.

‘It began last Autumn. I was asked by school authority to do some research work and all of a sudden, the topic of the history of our city, that has been suffering so much recently came to my mind. But what new things can we write about if there is so much information? We started our pursuit for new facts that were not translated into Russian.’ explained Liliya.

‘We were surfing the Net when we came across the part of Colin Thomas's video about his work to create the film about Hughsovka. We got interested at once!’ she continued.

Having recieved information about Colin himself and after realising it would be impossible to obtain his book on their city given the current situation in Ukraine, Liliya was put into contact with him via Susan Edwards at the Glamorgan Archive. The archives at Glamorgan had an extensive section on Hughesovka/Stalino/Donetsk.

‘Myself, along with my student Polina Pavlolva, contacted Colin and collected the information and Polina assembled the research.’ said Liliya.

‘When we received the letter from Colin, we got excited at once! We are currently reading his book and thinking about the second part of our research work.’

Dreaming a City by Colin Thomas is the history of one Ukraine town, a microcosm of Russia. Hughesovka (later Stalino and Donetsk) was a mining and steel town founded in the 1870s by Welsh entrepreneur John Hughes and seventy Welsh workers.

The book traces the town's shifts from patriarchal beginnings through the Russian revolutions, Bolshevism, Stalinism, Nazi occupation and the collapse of Communism and 1990s' rising Ukraine nationalism, to Ukraine post-independence.

Difficulties with crossing the border and sending parcels and packages to Liliya at her Kharkov address meant that she had to recieve a digital copy of the book.

‘The situation in Donetsk has improved a little but still we have military men in the streets and no peace treaty.’ said Liliya.

‘I read about what has happened to Donetsk with great sadness.’ added Colin Thomas.

‘Colin’s work is very important for our region’ said Liliya ‘If we don’t know our past we will not have a future. In the past information about the origin of Donetsk has been concealed and reduced to maybe 2-3 lines in a school textbook. A lot of common people didn’t think what city they lived in.’

‘Even today we still have a lot of work to tell people the truth about the origin of their city. As a teacher, I am going to prepare some tests based on Colin’s book and will include in my work to popularize our history!’ she continued.

Dreaming a City is a mixture of Russian and Welsh social and political history; travel journalism, as well as a tribute to Welsh historian Gwyn Alf Williams. Probing important themes such as capitalism and communism; internationalism and nationalism, in addition to freedom and exploitation, the author uses the city as a metaphor to explore a retreat from political idealism, and the nature of hope and disillusion.

Dreaming a City by Colin Thomas (£9.95, Y Lolfa) is available now.

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