Ah, Odessa, the pearl by the sea

Outstanding historical architecture, laughter, luxury hotels, top-notch restaurants and nightclubs, sophistication, convivial atmosphere and magnificent sunny beaches – all this is Odessa!

Ukraine’s largest merchant port, Odessa, is located in a bay in the northwestern corner of the Black Sea, between the Dnieper and Dniester estuaries. It was founded by Catherine the Great in 1794, on the site of the former Greek colony of Odessos. The Greek colony was razed to the ground by the Turkish Huns in the 3rd and 4th centuries, and eleven centuries passed before people came to live here again. The trading city of Kachibei arose first, and later the Turks turned it into the mighty fortress of Khajibei.

In 1789, the fortress of the Turks fell into the hands of a Russian naval force under the command of Captain Joseph de Ribas. De Ribas, a Catalan nobleman, won the empress’s favor by distinguishing himself in Russian service. He demonstrated his courage and his military skills when he participated in the assault on Izmail, another Turkish fortress on the Danube, of which Byron gives a picturesque account in Don Juan. Shortly after, in 1794, de Ribas had the idea of ​​turning Khajibei into a Russian naval base. Catherine’s new city and port, Odessa, had just been established when de Ribas died in 1800. Odessa’s main street, Deribasovskaya, is named after him.

At this time, after the French Revolution, Catherine the Great voluntarily accepted supporters of the French regime into the service of Russia and it was Armand Emmanuel du Plessis Duc de Richelieu, who in 1803 was appointed the first Governor General of Odessa and the entire North. Black Sea coast, then called “New Russia”. A descendant of the famous Cardinal Richelieu from the reign of King Louis XII, he worked very hard on the development of the port during his twelve years in office. Ordinary houses began to be built from the local yellow “shell” limestone and the intensive quarrying that continued for the next century left a vast and entangled network of catacombs beneath the city, like those in Rome. During World War II they gave shelter to guerrilla brigades that neither the German nor the Romanian forces could dislodge.

In 1815, the Duke of Richelieu returns to France. A monument to him, made in 1828 by the Russian sculptor Ivan Martos, was erected in Odessa on Primorsky Boulevard with a view of the Odessa Harbor and 192 steps leading to the sea. The Odessa steps are immortalized in Sergei Eisenstein’s classic film, The Battleship Potemkin, and are called the Potemkin steps.

Odessa’s heyday was under the third governor, the Russian anglophile Mikhail Vorontsov, in the years up to the mid-19th century, by which time the flourishing city rivaled other great cities of the Russian Empire, ranking fourth after St. Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw in wealth and population. A line of passenger steamboats was installed, and the first newspaper, in both Russian and French, came out in 1827. Many of Odessa’s architectural features date from the period of Vorontsov’s rule. Some of them are: the Potemkin Stairs, the Governor General’s Palace, the Stock Exchange and the Naryshkina Palace. Three years before his death in 1856, the city erected a monument to Vorontsov.

Although freeport status had been abolished in 1849, Odessa continued to prosper. Its turnover was comparable to that of Saint Petersburg, Russia’s main port, and banking and smuggling flourished. The nouveau riche displayed their wealth by beautifying Odessa: the new Stock Exchange (1889) and the Opera House (1887) were destined to surpass their European counterparts in splendor, particularly those in Vienna. Nothing was too good for Odessa: if a touring opera company was invited, it had to be the best that Italy had to offer. Many famous artists have performed on stage since 1887, including P. Tchaikovsky, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, S. Rachmaninoff, P. Sarasate, F. Chaliapin, S. Grushelnitskaya, A. Nezhdanova, L. Sobinov, T. Ruffo, Batistini, Jeraldoni, A. Pavlova and many others. The Odessa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater is the oldest theater in Ukraine. The theater’s most recent renovation was successfully completed in 2007 with the preservation of its neo-baroque style, lavish rococo-style hall, and unique acoustics.

In this wealthy city, jewelry was very fashionable and jewelers had a brisk trade. One of the most cunning of them, Rukhomovsky, caused quite a stir among the artistic authorities of Europe. In 1896, he offered to the Vienna Museum what he claimed to be a golden tiara of the Scythian king Saitafern, supposedly found among the ruins of the ancient Greek city of Olbia. The museum was saved from buying a fake only because of the prohibitive price demanded, but the tiara, after being declared genuine by experts, was bought in France for 200,000 francs. The truth came to light in 1903. The tiara was transferred from the Louvre to the Museum of Decorative Art but soon returned to the Louvre, to be hidden in one of its vaults.

In the revolutionary years, 1910 – 1920, a group of original young writers and poets emerged in Odessa, including Isaak Babel and Yuri Olesha, whose first ironic works are now considered classics of Soviet literature. After the city’s suffering in World War II, Odessa became a more somber city and the emigrants of the 1970s transferred much of Odessa’s distinctive humor to Israel and New York, where there is now a “Little Odessa” in Brighton Beach. But the satirical tradition has not completely disappeared and some of the best Soviet satirists of today are natives of this sunny and friendly city with its magnificent harbor and splendid old streets.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, the port of Odessa attracted bold and enterprising people of all nationalities and Odessa became a lively mix of Greeks, Italians, Jews, Russians, sailors and visitors from all over the world. They all contributed their specific brand of humor. Since 1972, Odessa has been home to the annual international comedy and humor film festival, Humorina, in which the winning entry receives a small copy of the duke’s statue. Many of the ex-USSR generations know Odessa Mom as the “capital of humor” itself, Odessa, distinctive local humor and dialect, something not many cities have. Odessa has been and always will be famous for its pranks.

Outstanding historical architecture, laughter, luxurious hotels, first-rate restaurants and clubs, sophistication, friendly atmosphere and magnificent sunny beaches – all this is Odessa!