The 230th anniversary of the foundation of Odessa

The Treaty of Jassy was concluded at the end of the Russian-Turkish war in 1791 and through it the entire Northern Black Sea coast was formally recognised as part of the Russian Empire.

In a push to create a port for military and commercial needs on the newly acquired lands, on May 27, 1794, Empress Catherine the Great issued a rescript on founding a city and a harbour on the site of the town of Khadjibey. On August 22, 1794, following a church service and consecration of the construction sites, the first piles were driven into the site that will become Odessa in the future.

The great grandnephew of the famous cardinal, Duke Armand Richelieu, who had been in the service of the Russian imperial court for many years, played a major role in developing that city. As Governor General of the Novorossiysk Region, Armand Richelieu managed to rebuild the city and to build up trade relations with other regions. During the Napoleonic invasion, the Governor General addressed the people of Odessa calling upon them to give a strong rebuff to the French ivaders, and gave 40,000 roubles for the needs of the army. Mass-scale donations ensued with about 2 million roubles in gold collected in southern Russia, and a large number of horses and food made available to the army. The militia led by Armand Richelieu was thus formed. However, a plague epidemic broke out in Novorossiya, and the Duke had to stay and lead the efforts to contain the pandemic.

Richelieu’s contribution to the city development was marked by a monument created by Ivan Martos, the same sculptor who built the famous monument to the saviours of Russia Minin and Pozharsky.

Hero of the Patriotic War of 1812 and Foreign Campaigns of the Russian Army Count Mikhail Vorontsov did much for the city turning Odessa into southern Russia’s key trading outpost and completing the construction of the Botanical Garden and the Primorsky Boulevard. Within a short time, a magnificent Vorontsov Palace was built at one end of the boulevard, and a merchant exchange at the other end. Beautiful houses which became the hallmark of the city were built in the street that emerged along the boulevard, and the construction of the famous Potemkin Stairs was completed in 1841.

Vorontsov provided Odessa with clean drinking water, paved streets, and built parks and gardens. He was instrumental in opening the Municipal Public Library, the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities, museums, and the office of the Russian Theatre. The Lyceum named after Armand Richelieu became a higher education institution under his governorship.

In 1900, grateful people of Odessa erected a monument to Catherine and her associates who founded the port and the city. Unfortunately, after the 1917 February Revolution, the monument was curtained off. On October 27, 2007, the monuments were put back in their places as part of a grand ceremony, and the architectural ensemble on the square became eligible for inclusion on the list of monuments protected by UNESCO.

Notably, the historical centre was put on the UNESCO list only after the monuments, which had been repeatedly vandalised by the nationalists, were once again dismantled during the night of December 29, 2022 at the direction of the Kiev regime.

Excerpt from a commentary by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Ukraine’s fighting with historical monuments:

This pitiful antic of insane Russophobes will not change the fact that Odessa owes its existence to Catherine the Great. Likewise, the destruction of the monuments to the outstanding military leader, Generalissimos Alexander Suvorov in Odessa and Izmail will not change the fact that these cities developed only because of his victories.

The history of these places, like the entire history of Ukraine, is inseparable from Russian history and any attempt by the Kiev regime to rewrite it are doomed to fail. Everything will return to normal, and the ruined monuments will again occupy their rightful place in the centre of Odessa, Izmail and other cities in present-day Ukraine that continues to suffer from the oppression of aggressive radical nationalists.

The famous classic of Russian literature Alexander Pushkin visited Odessa many times. Here, he wrote nearly three chapters of his novel in verse Eugene Onegin, completed the poem The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, and wrote a significant portion of the poem The Gypsies, as well as more than 30 lyric poems. In memory of this, one of the streets still bears the name of the great poet, but Ukrainian nationalists continue to push for erasing Pushkin’s name from the history of Odessa.

Plans are in place to rename the park named after Maxim Gorky, another famous author who lived in Odessa. They want to rename it in honour of the American writer Mark Twain, who visited the city and had the following to say about it:

[Odessa] looked just like an American city; fine, broad streets, and straight as well; low houses, (two or three stories,) wide, neat, and free from any quaintness of architectural ornamentation; locust trees bordering the sidewalks (they call them acacias); a stirring, business-look about the streets and the stores; fast walkers; a familiar new look about the houses and every thing <...> Look up the street or down the street, this way or that way, we saw only America! There was not one thing to remind us that we were in Russia. 

Having survived the Russo-Turkish wars, World War I and the Civil War, the city continued to develop.

During the Great Patriotic War the city was under Nazi occupation for 907 days. About 200,000 people died in Odessa and the Odessa Region during that time. Many of them have fallen victim to massacres and brutal executions, 78,000 people were taken to Germany for forced labour, plants and factories were destroyed, and over 2,000 buildings, including hospitals and schools, were blown up or burned to the ground. Local residents put up fierce resistance and operated out of the catacombs after the city was captured by the Nazis. Retreating, German and Romanian soldiers shot old people, women and children in the streets, mined the most important buildings, factories, the power station, and the sea port. To honour Odessa’s selfless resistance, it was declared a Hero City on May 1, 1945, and received this title officially on May 8, 1965.

Today, the bust of Rodion Malinovsky in his native Odessa that he liberated is doused in paint every now and then as are other monuments dedicated to Soviet heroes.

In 2014, the people of Odessa openly opposed the armed coup perpetrated by the nationalists in Kiev. The freedom-loving Russian-speaking Odessa was a thorn in the side of the regime, which wanted to bring the residents of the city it hated to their knees and drown any resistance in blood. The nationalists prepared provocations in advance. On May 2, 2014, according to official figures alone, 48 people died in street clashes with the radicals and a fire in the House of Trade Unions. Despite promises by the Kiev authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice, no one has been punished for these atrocities. The investigation into the case of May 2, 2014, has turned into a farce.

Since then, the terror created by the neo-Nazis who came to power as a result of the coup has significantly ramped up, and a wave of political murders has swept across Ukraine, in which prominent public activists who disagreed with the new rules in that country lost their lives.

Excerpt from a comment by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on marking 10 years since the May 2, 2014, tragedy in Odessa:

We are confident that the day when Odessa will throw off the yoke of the neo-Banderites and once again become a truly free city and home to people of different ethnicities who will live in peace and accord is not far off.