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Odessa was founded in the late 18th century by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, who imagined the city as the St. Petersburg of the South. Soon it became one of the largest cities in the Russian Empire with booming industry, a lively seaport, and very cosmopolitan population, which was composed primarily of Russians, Jews, Ukrainians, Greeks, and Romanians. Nowadays it is a commercial port, a naval base and a tourist resort with the population exceeding 1 million inhabitants.
The Odessa National Theater of Opera and Ballet
The Odessa ‘City Theater’ was constructed by the Viennese architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer in 1884-87 in Baroque style. The Theater hall was modeled after the style of Louis XVI, and is richly decorated with gilded stucco figures and designs. It is said to be one of the three most beautiful Opera houses in Europe.
The Odessa Opera House
The Potemkin Stairs
The Potemkin Stairs are a giant stairway which is considered to be a formal entrance into the city from the side of the sea. The staircase was designed to create an optical illusion. It is 27 m high and extends only for 142 m, but seems to be of greater length. The stairs were made famous by the Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein, who depicted them in the silent movie classic ‘The Battleship Potemkin’ in 1925.
The Potemkin Stairs
The Richelieu Monument
At the top of the Potemkin Stairs there is a monument to Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, a French royalist aristocrat who had fled Republican France, served in the Russian Imperial Army, and later became Odessa’s first ‘Russian’ governor. The monument was designed by the sculptor Ivan Martos and unveiled in 1862.
The Richelieu Monument
The Odessa Sea Port
The Odessa Sea Port is called the sea gates of Ukraine. It is the largest of six Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea. The admission capacity of the passenger terminal of the Port is 4 million passengers per year. Seven berths of this non-freezing universal port accept vessels up to 270 m in lengths and up to 13,0 m draft. On 25 September 2008 Odessa was visited by the “Queen Victoria”, the largest liner to have moored in its port.
The Odessa Sea Port
All photos are the original work of
Jonathan Halcovage and Oleksandr Olesnevych | 
