Tymofiy Kuzmych (Tymofiy Ivanovych Veklichev) is not just the mystical hero of the song, but a real historical figure: a true titan of labor and one of the oldest blast-furnace masters at the Kirov Metallurgical Plant in Makiivka. People knew him as a man of the furnace, a man of iron, a man for whom the plant was not merely a place of work, but his life’s work. He spent nearly fifty years at the furnace, smelting more than a million tons of metal.
In the early twentieth century, he was an apprentice to the renowned master Falkenberg. Later, together with his brother Yefim, he joined a cohort known as the “old wolves of the blast furnace” — the most respected masters of their era. These were men who knew the furnace not from blueprints, but by feel — through their hands, their eyes, their sweat, and their very lives.
During the Second World War, he survived occupation, devastation, and hunger, but he never broke. When the enemy retreated and the plant lay in ruins, the old master, already past seventy, was the first to return to rebuild his shattered furnace.
After the war, Veklichev became a living symbol of the resilience of Makiivka’s steel industry. He not only continued to work but passed his craft on to new generations. Masters like him were more than just workers — they were the bearers of an entire school, an entire era, and the very industrial culture of the Donbas.
Today, Russia’s war against Ukraine has brought a new and even more terrible devastation to the Ukrainian Donbas. The Russian occupation, which began in 2014 and escalated into a full-scale invasion in 2022, became a death sentence for the steel giants of Makiivka, Mariupol, and other industrial cities in the east. The occupiers are not only wiping these plants off the map with artillery and bombs; driven by greed, they are dismantling and looting equipment and raw materials, cutting entire enterprises apart for scrap.
That is why Kuzmych in this song is not just a worker from the past. He is the spirit of the entire industrial Donbas, the embodiment of the strength of generations of Ukrainian steelworkers who built these plants with their sweat and blood. And now that spirit rises from the ashes to demand a reckoning for every destroyed furnace, every stolen piece of machinery, and all of our metal!
Listen here: Let Vengeance Begin!
🎤 Lyrics:
Old man Kuzmych is as hard as stone,
Soot on his overalls, cold in his bones.
The master of iron, never seeking renown,
For forty long years he drove steel girders down.
His stare is so heavy, he spits on the mud,
The furnace is his body, cast iron his blood!
He saw the dark basements, the hunger, the dread,
The steppes of Donbas where he suffered and bled.
From scrap metal, tar, and the red-brick walls,
He carried the plant through its smoke-black halls.
He never expected a horror like this —
A savage wild horde tearing iron to bits!
Hide in your trenches, you damned Russian scum!
Old Kuzmych has risen — your time has come!
The ruins are ringing, heavy is his tread.
Kuzmych sounds the siren to wake up the dead!
Hide in your trenches, you damned russian scum!
Old Kuzmych has risen — your time has come!
The blast furnace glows with an old iron grin,
Kuzmych wants his metal! Let vengeance begin!
Kuzmych remembers each weld and each seam,
He lifts up his hammer, eyes starting to gleam.
Where steel used to pour, there is rubble and muck,
They’re hauling his life’s work away in a truck.
Old Kuzmych roars out, demanding to know:
“What ghoul killed my furnace and stopped the steel flow?!”
Arise, brother Efim! Falkenberg, rise!
Force air through the furnace, let fire storm the skies!
Turn on the loud siren, let iron jaws breathe —
The ancient old bones have awakened beneath!
The ancient old bones have awakened beneath!
Hide in your trenches, you damned Russian scum!
Old Kuzmych has risen — your time has come!
The ruins are ringing, heavy is his tread.
Kuzmych sounds the siren to wake up the dead!
Hide in your trenches, you damned russian scum!
Old Kuzmych has risen — your time has come!
The blast furnace glows with an old iron grin,
Kuzmych wants his metal! Let vengeance begin!
Hide in your trenches, you damned Russian scum!
Old Kuzmych has risen — your time has come!
The ruins are ringing, heavy is his tread.
Kuzmych sounds the siren to wake up the dead!
Hide in your trenches, you damned russian scum!
Old Kuzmych has risen — your time has come!
The blast furnace glows with an old iron grin,
Kuzmych wants his metal! Let vengeance begin!
Kuzmych wants his metal! Let vengeance begin!
Kuzmych wants his metal! Let vengeance begin!