The city is a center of the regional coal industry and much of its economy relies on mining, despite a recent drop in the number of employed miners.

During the 1940s, the town had three administrative districts: During World War II, Chystiakove was occupied by the German Army from 31 October 1941 to 2 September 1943.

[4] In 1964 Chystiakove was renamed Torez in honor of Maurice Thorez, the longtime leader of the French Communist Party who purported in his autobiography to have been a coal miner.

[7] On 17 July, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, was hit by a Russian Buk surface-to-air missile launched from separatist-controlled territory.

[10] As of the 2001 Ukrainian census:[11][12] Chystiakove's transport system consists of thirty-one routes served by buses and taxis and links to the cities of Snizhne and Shakhtarsk.

Chystiakove's center includes Pionerska, Nikolaeva, Engels, Syzrantsev and 50 Years of the USSR Streets, Gagarin Avenue and Boulevard Illich.

Shanghai, a small residential area also in southeastern Chystiakove, was built in 1946 by Hungarian prisoners of war and consists of seven-story apartment buildings.