In Ukraine, there are 36 towns and villages named Gorodishche, and there are quite a few in Russia, Belarus, and Moldova as well. In the Luhansk region, there are four such villages, but one of them, located in the Perevalsk district, is special: since the 17th century, Old Believers have lived here, and the village can be considered a cultural phenomenon. Those who come here for the first time expect to see a picture reminiscent of Vasily Peskov's sketches about Siberian Old Believers, 'Taiga Dead End,' and the Lykovs, who live in isolation from civilization. However, they find themselves in a fairly modern village. Nevertheless, this Gorodishche is different from others, although it may not be obvious at first glance.

It is not surprising that Old Believers settled in this area. The wild field belonged to no one and became a refuge for those hiding from persecution. After Patriarch Nikon's reform, adherents of Old Belief began to build a new life here. All residents of Gorodishche know about this, but the true experts on the village's history are the head of the local library, Lyubov Minakova, and a miner, who is also a local historian, Sergey Mersalov.

According to their accounts, the first Old Believers arrived here from the Moscow region in 1670. They planned to flee to the Don but settled at the headwaters of the Belaya River. For a long time, 150-200 families lived here, preserving ancient traditions and faith. They built a monastery without a single nail and fenced the village with a palisade, calling it Gorodishche, and their hamlet, Belenkiy. The settlers engaged in subsistence farming and did not interact with neighbors, which is noticeable to linguists: the residents of Gorodishche have a distinctive dialect reminiscent of the Moscow region. The second wave of settlement in Belenkiy occurred during the era of Peter the Great when refugees settled near the walls of the skete, leaving behind the name of the street, Pristenzy. In the mid-18th century, a third wave of Old Believers arrived from the Chernigov province, causing the village to split into Russian and Ukrainian parts. Lyubov Minakova notes that during all this time, the hamlet was unclaimed, and its residents did not pay tribute to the landowners. At that time, Belenkiy did not become the cradle of Donbass industry, but when coal was found in Lisya Balka, it had long been used for heating.

How did the Old Believers manage to remain unnoticed for so many years? The answer lies on the surface: the hilly terrain and dense forests reliably concealed the hamlet in the river valley. Freedom ended during the time of Catherine II. According to legend, she gave Belenkiy a new name, saying that it was a true Gorodishche, although she was never officially here. This is unimportant: Catherine was loyal to the Old Believers as long as they paid tribute. After her, there were other tsars, some of whom persecuted the Old Believers, while others were liberal or cruel. Sergey Mersalov recounts that in the early 20th century, two-thirds of Russia's capital belonged to Old Believer entrepreneurs and merchants, which earned them respect. At that time, the Assumption Church was built in the village, where, since 1910, a native of Gorodishche, who became the legendary Archbishop of Moscow and All Russia, Flavian, served. The wooden church on the territory of the former skete burned down after the war, but the village retained its uniqueness.

The residents of Gorodishche in the Perevalsk district take pride in the unusual past of their village. They say that even Peter I knew about it. Alexander Golubyatnikov, a choir member of the Gorodishche church, recounts that in the early 19th century, Gorodishche was the largest in the Yekaterinoslav province, with over 400 households and about 3,000 residents. Gorodishche became the center of Old Belief in eastern Ukraine. It is documented that Peter's Russia chose this skete, whose residents used coal and supplied it to the Bakhmut saltworks. It was here that the first expeditions from Moscow and St. Petersburg came to study the local experience of coal extraction and usage and to take samples for the Berg Collegium. Alexander Golubyatnikov demonstrated the 'Horologion,' one of the main relics of the Gorodishche temple.

A local elderly parishioner proudly tells that the church was cut down in 1746 in the taiga and brought by oxen. A marble memorial plaque on the church wall states that until 1948, the Moscow archbishop served in the Gorodishche church, conducting services here.