Reminders of Ukrainian identity are few and far between in rebel-controlled Donetsk. The country’s flag and trident emblem have been removed from all public spaces and replaced by the black, blue and red stripes of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic. Russian roubles are accepted as readily as Ukrainian hryvnias, and DPR passport wallets are available – although the territory is not officially recognised anywhere in the world.



Alongside the superficial changes, more fundamental shifts are under way as rebel leaders seek to eliminate European influences and align their region with Russia. Moscow’s gravitational pull is particularly evident in the education system, where authorities have overhauled the curriculum, changed the grading system and stripped report cards of Ukraine’s national symbols, including the distinctive gold trident.

“History will be studied with a greater Russian bias and geography will focus more on Russia’s territories,” said one secondary school teacher, who did not want to give her name. “Ukrainian language lessons remain but the number of classes will decrease from around eight hours a week to just two hours. Russian language and literature lessons will increase.”

It’s a throwback to the Soviet era, which would set clock back decades Mychailo Wynnyckyj, education adviser

Russia’s five-point grading system now also takes precedence over Ukraine’s 12-point scheme. “We give students the choice between the two but the Russian one is taken into greater account,” said Oleg Rusakov, the director of Abakumov College in Donetsk.

Dr Mychailo Wynnyckyj, an adviser to Ukraine’s education minister, described the removal of symbols as “a powerful statement of separation” and criticised the return to the five-point system. “It’s an anachronism, and a throwback to the Soviet era which would set the clock back decades,” he said.

Echoes of the USSR are becoming more prominent in Donetsk and in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic. Posters displaying the hammer and sickle appear across the separatist regions, and soldiers and citizens alike speak proudly of Stalin. “That they’re moving away from Ukraine’s current grading system is again symbolic of their rejection of all things European and acceptance of all things Russian – even Soviet,” said Wynnyckyj.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pro-Russian activists stand guard under a statue of Lenin during a rally in Donetsk. Photograph: Sergei Grits/AP

School leavers receive Russian certificates complete with Russia’s national emblem, the two-headed eagle, allowing them to enter both local universities and institutions across the border – a move allegedly driven by political pragmatism.

“When you bring in a new regime and tell your citizens that their opportunities have significantly diminished, you have a problem,” said Wynnyckyj. “These students have little prospect of studying elsewhere in the world, except perhaps for Russia. The authorities have to offer an alternative to Ukraine because if they don’t, they’re going to have some pretty unhappy graduates.”

The new history syllabus has been subject to some of the starkest changes as the DPR overwrites Ukraine’s version of the past. The full spectrum of the region’s history will be covered, from the medieval Kievan Rus to post-Soviet Russia at the start of the millennium, said Alexander Sotmikov, a history teacher at the Donetsk Industrial Pedagogical College.

The Russian interpretation of the second world war is likely to dominate, as will sanitised accounts of the horrors of the Stalin era and the Holodomor, the 1933 famine in which millions perished. The latter is often portrayed by Russia as an inevitable product of Soviet collectivisation rather than a brutal and deliberate famine.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Women in Crimea pose next to a Russian flag bearing the name of the city of Sevastopol. Photograph: Alexander Aksakov/Getty Images

Ukraine’s controversial independence leader, Stepan Bandera, is unlikely to emerge unscathed. Branded a Nazi collaborator by Russia, he is a totem of both pro-government volunteer battalions and last year’s Maidan revolution, which is regarded by many in the east as a fascist coup.

Ukraine to rewrite Soviet history with controversial 'decommunisation' laws Read more

Ahead of the new school year, education chiefs are “building a new model” with a greater emphasis on the history of Donbass, Rusakov said. He added: “Before, we studied the history of Ukraine. Now we are going to focus on the history of our new state.”

One secondary school teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said authorities had demanded the syllabus be changed “very fast”. “They are now looking back at the past through a totally new prism,” she said.

Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year, the new regime on the Black Sea peninsula announced that Russian history textbooks would replace Ukrainian ones, offering wildly different interpretations of some of the most contentious periods of the 20th century.

Education chiefs in Kiev were outraged by the changes made to the curriculum in Crimea and are now greatly alarmed by the developments in the separatist east, Wynnyckyj said. “The education sector was one of the first things to be reformed after the Maidan revolution,” he said. “But people in the DPR and LPR are embracing a much more Soviet and pro-Russian paradigm. Speaking as a reformer myself, it hurts to see this happening. It is a slap in the face. Clearly we were not able to sell the value of reform to the constituency in Donetsk.

“There are three things which are highly politically charged in Ukraine: one is symbolism; the second is interpretations of history; and the third is language. The reality now is that two areas of the country are moving apart.”