Odesa Revisited

By Walter Kish

I spent several days in Odesa last week on business, and welcomed the opportunity to revisit once more one of my favourite cities in Ukraine.  I was staying at the Continental Hotel near the end of Deribasivska Street in the heart of old Odesa.  Although the building’s history dates back to Tsarist times, the interior has been renovated to modern standards and the rooms would not be out of place in a hotel in any major North American city, except of course for the fact that the ceilings would accommodate a tall basketball player with me standing on his shoulder. 

As usual I made little use of the mini-bar with its inflated prices, but the Internet connection came in handy, and at a surcharge of only 10 Hryvnias (about $2) a day, was a real bargain.  The price of the room at 520 Hryvnias (about $120) a night was also relatively reasonable considering that I’d be paying two to three times more in Kyiv for a similar room in the center of town.

Deribasivska Street owes its name to a Spanish soldier of fortune by the name of Jose de Ribas, who while employed as a mercenary officer in the armies of Russian Empress Catherine l, captured an Ottoman Turk fortress stronghold by the name of Khadjibei along the shores of the Black Sea in 1789.  De Ribas suggested to his Russian masters that the site with its superb natural harbour, would make an excellent port city on which to base a Russian Black Sea fleet, and in 1794 Catherine gave the go ahead for the establishment of a port city on the site that was subsequently named Odessa. 

For those of you that pay attention to spelling, you will note that the original name (in Russian) contained two “s’s”.  Subsequent to Ukraine’s independence the official spelling was changed to the Ukrainian transliterated form with only one “s”.

In any case, Deribasivska Street was named after this same Jose de Ribas, and a fine statue of this colourful character in impressive military garb graces the end of the street which has become Odesa’s most popular and busy dining and entertainment area.  Aiding the cause is the fact that most of the street (between Rishelievska to Preobrazhenska Streets) is permanently closed to vehicular traffic making it a popular and scenic pedestrian mall.

Rishelievska Street is named after another famous foreigner who figures prominently in Odesa’s history, namely the Duke of Richelieu.  The Duke was a French noble who fled his native country in the wake of the French Revolution and found both refuge and employment in the Russian court.  Tsar Alexander I commissioned the Duke to be Odesa’s first governor and it was he who was most responsible for the city’s initial and impressive growth, earning him the recognition as being the city’s founding father.  The Duke imported hordes of French, Italian and other European builders and tradesmen and over the next few decades they created an impressive architectural wonder on the heights overlooking the Black Sea.

The Duke eventually returned to France after the defeat of Napoleon and became that country’s Prime Minister, however his accomplishments are revered even to this day, and a statue to the Duke stands at the top of Odesa’s famous Potemkin Stairs.  Curiously enough, the statue for some strange and unexplained reason, shows the Duke dressed in a toga and looking more like a Roman senator than a Russian (or French) aristocrat.

The statue is located midway along Primorsky Boulevard, a beautiful treed promenade along the escarpment that overlooks Odesa Harbour.  The north side is flanked by the impressive and ornate mansions and palaces once occupied by well known Russian nobility such as the Vorontsovs, Gagarins and the Tolstoys that used to enjoy summering in Odesa.  In jarring contrast is the view of Odesa harbour with its forest of cranes and industrial harbour facilities testifying to the fact that it is a very large, busy and modern port city.

The Duke of Richelieu was succeeded as governor by another Frenchman, the Count de Langeron, and up until the Bolshevik Revolution the city enjoyed the reputation as being one of the most multicultural, colourful and vibrant cities in Eastern Europe.

Even though much of that original diversity has disappeared and Odesa has become largely a Russian city linguistically and culturally, one can still find the auras and legacy of its storied and multifaceted past.  It does not have the leaden and stultifying atmosphere of the more Russified cities of Eastern Ukraine.  The people are more open, friendly and tolerant; the culture, music and nightlife richer and more varied; the pace of life more relaxed.  It is a place I enjoy and feel comfortable in.  It is well worth the visit.