Although there is evidence of prior settlement in 1556, the first official mention of Bakhmut dates from 1571, when Ivan the Terrible, in order to protect the southern border of the Russian state from Crimean–Nogai slave raids, ordered the creation of
border fortifications along the Aidar and Siverskyi Donets rivers. The settlement was described then as a guard-fort (storozha) named after the nearby Bakhmutka River, a tributary of the Siverskyi Donets, and located at the mouth of a stream called the
Chornyi Zherebets.

The history of Bakhmut before the 18th century is sparse. It was initially a border post that later became a fortified town. In 1701, Peter I ordered the fort at Bakhmut to be upgraded and the adjacent sloboda (free village) of Bakhmut be designated a
city. The new fort was completed in 1703 and housed 170 people. In 1704, Peter commanded some Cossacks to settle at the Bakhmutka River and mine salt. The population of Bakhmut doubled, and the town was assigned to the Izium Regiment, a province of
Sloboda Ukraine.

In the autumn of 1705, Bakhmut became one of the centers of the Bulavin Rebellion. A detachment of Don Cossacks headed by Ataman Kondraty Bulavin captured the Bakhmut salt mines and occupied the city until 7 March 1708, when it was retaken by government
troops.

From 1708 to 22 April 1725, Bakhmut was assigned to the Azov Governorate. On 29 May 1719, it became the administrative center of Bakhmut Province within the Azov Governorate. From 1753-1775, it was the administrative center of Slavo-Serbia, a short-lived
territory that was settled by thousands of colonists from the Balkans, predominantly Serbs.

In 1783, Bakhmut became a city within the Yekaterinoslav province (Novorossiysk Governorate). At this time the city contained 49 great houses and five factories that produced bricks, candles, and soap. The city had about 150 shops, a hospital, and three
schools: two private boarding schools for children of wealthy parents, and a Sunday school for children of workers. Bakhmut had a large city center where fairs were held twice a year, on 12 July (Day of the Apostles Peter and Paul) and 21 September (Day
of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary). The city's annual turnover was about 1 million rubles.

On 2 August 1811, a coat of arms of Bakhmut was approved, featuring symbolism evoking the salt reserves of the city. On 25 January 1851, the city became a municipality, with Vasily I. Pershin as mayor. In 1863, a large synagogue was built in the city, as
a place of worship for Bakhmut's Jewish community of 1,560 people. In 1875, a municipal water system was installed. In 1876, large deposits of rock salt were discovered in the Bakhmut Basin, leading to a rapid increase in the number of salt mines.
Bakhmut soon produced 12% of the total Russian output of salt.

Streets were paved in Bakhmut in 1900. The construction of the Kharkiv-Bakhmut-Popasna railroad encouraged production of alabaster, plaster, brick, tile, and soda ash in Bakhmut. At the beginning of the 20th century, the city developed a metal-working
industry. By 1900, the city had 76 small industrial enterprises, which employed 1,078 workers, as well as four salt mines, which employed 874 workers.

By 1913, the population consisted of 28,000 people. There were two hospitals with 210 beds, four secondary and two vocational schools, six single-class schools, four parish schools, and a private library. In April 1918, after the collapse of the Russian
Empire, troops loyal to the Ukrainian People's Republic took control of Bakhmut. Later, it was captured by White movement soldiers led by Pyotr Krasnov, who were eventually defeated by Soviet forces.

From 1920-1925, Bakhmut was the administrative center of the newly created Donets Governorate of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1923, there were 36 enterprises in Bakhmut, including a "Victory of Labor" factory that formerly made nails and spikes, a "Lightning"
factory that produced castings for agriculture, as well as brick, tile, and alabaster factories, and one shoe factory. Local mines were renamed "Karl Liebknecht and Sverdlov", "Shevchenko", and "Bakhmut salt".

In 1924, the city's name was changed from Bakhmut to Artemivsk, in honour of the communist revolutionary figure Comrade Artem. The city's synagogue was shuttered in 1928. 3,255 residents of Artemivsk died as a result of the Holodomor. During Stalin's
Great Purge in the late 30s, over 500 residents of Artemivsk were victims of the repressions. In 1938, a man named Moskalenko was the First Secretary of the Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine in Artemivsk. In 1941, Vasily Panteleevich
Prokopenko was First Secretary of the City Committee of the Communist Party.

During WWII, at the beginning of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Artemivsk's population included 5,300 Jews, making up almost 10% of the total population. The majority of these were either drafted into the Red Army or evacuated into the
interior areas of the Soviet Union.

On 31 Oct 1941, Nazi German troops began their occupation of Artemivsk. On 19 November, the occupation authorities issued a decree forcing the remaining local Jews to register at the local commandant's office and wear armbands marking them as Jewish. On
9 January 1942, under the pretext of needing to gather in one place for relocation, Artemivsk's Jewish population was gathered in the city park, where they were forced to hand over all their valuable possessions, then were locked in the cellar of a
former NKVD building. They were locked in the "freezing" cellar for three days without food or water. During this period, according to Haaretz, local residents threw lumps of snow through the windows in an attempt to provide some sort of drinkable water
to the imprisoned Jews. A few residents risked their lives to rescue some Jewish children, a feat for which they would later receive the title of Righteous Among the Nations from Israel.

The Artemivsk massacre took place on 11-12 January 1942, when Sonderkommando 4b of Einsatzgruppe C led thousands of Jews into a mineshaft in an alabaster mine, where they shot into the crowd, killing several people. The soldiers then bricked up the
entrance to the tunnel, suffocating the remaining people trapped inside. The exact number of dead is unclear, and records of the Jewish death toll differ: Soviet documents reported a number of about 3,000, while the German occupation authorities recorded
1,200 victims. The city was eventually liberated by the Red Army on 5 September 1943.

In 1961, Kuzma Petrovich Golovko became First Secretary of the City Party Committee, followed by Ivan Malyukin in 1966, Nikolai S. Tagan in 1976, and Yuri K. Smirnov from 1980-1983. From April 1990-1994, during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Alexei
Reva was Chairman of the Artemivsk City Council and was elected mayor in 1994, three years after Ukraine regained its independence.

In January 1999, a charitable Jewish foundation in the city, as well as the Artemivsk city council and a winery that had opened on the site in 1952, inaugurated a memorial to commemorate the victims of the 1942 mass murder. The memorial was built into a
rock face in the old mine where water collects and was named the "Wailing Wall" for the murdered Jews of the city.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakhmut

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