Against the background of the overwhelming majority of large European cities, Odessa looks like a teenager - she is only a little over 200 years old. But during this time, a small village in a bay on the Black Sea coast has turned into a city with a million inhabitants, a major port and an industrial center.
A certain bias in trade, characteristic of all port cities, in Odessa, due to the free trade regime and the Pale of Settlement in the 19th century, acquired a hypertrophied scale and influenced the national composition of the population. In the Black Sea region, it is everywhere quite colorful, but Odessa stands out against the background of this diversity. In fact, the city has developed its own ethnic group, which stands out for the way of thinking, demeanors and language.
Through the efforts of several generations of writers, humorists and pop artists, Odessa seems to be a lightweight city, whose inhabitants are born solely in order to skimp on or bargain on Privoz, come up with a new anecdote or become its hero, sigh about the delights of the Franco port and pretend to be indignant at the stupidity of holidaymakers. All this is done using a mixture of languages with an accent that is considered Hebrew.
Moldavanka is one of the most picturesque districts of Odessa
The case is perhaps unique in world history: outstanding natives of the city, probably starting with Isaac Babel, did everything to describe Odessa as a city inhabited by clowns of varying degrees of joy (there is also the role of “sad clown”) and thieves of varying degrees of cruelty and imposingness. And what about associations with the word “Odessa” already in modern times? Zhvanetsky, Kartsev, "Masks Show". As if Suvorov, De Ribasov, Richelieu, Vorontsov, Witte, Stroganov, Pushkin, Akhmatova, Inber, Korolev, Mendeleev, Mechnikov, Filatov, Dovzhenko, Carmen, Marinesko, Obodzinsky and hundreds of other, less famous people were born and who lived in Odessa.
Cinema figures have also tried. Odessa does not disappear from the screens, acting as a huge scenery in numerous epics about bandits, thieves and raiders. The ready-made historical story that the besieged Odessa held the defense for 73 days, more than the whole of France, is of no interest to anyone. But all of France signed a shameful surrender, and Odessa never surrendered. Her defenders were evacuated to Crimea. The latter left the city in the darkness of the night, guiding themselves along the paths sprinkled with chalk. Rather, the penultimate - the last fighters remained in positions forever, imitating the presence of troops. Alas, in popular culture, Odessa-mother defeated Odessa-city-hero. We tried to collect some interesting facts and stories about Odessa, showing the history of the city from a creative point of view.
1. The great ophthalmologist, academician Vladimir Filatov was born in the Penza province of Russia, but his biography as a doctor and scientist is tightly connected with Odessa. After graduating from Moscow University, he moved to the southern capital. Working in a clinic at Novorossiysk University, he quickly prepared and defended a large-scale (more than 400 pages) doctoral dissertation. For a long time, the scientist worked on the problems of keratoplasty - transplantation of the cornea of the eye. Along the way, Filatov developed various therapeutic methods. The main success came to him in 1931, when he managed to transplant a cadaveric cornea preserved at a low temperature. The scientist did not stop there. He developed a transplant technology that almost any surgeon could master. In Odessa, he created an eye ambulance station and the Institute of Eye Diseases. Patients came to see an outstanding doctor from all over the Soviet Union. Filatov personally performed several thousand operations, and hundreds of thousands of successful surgical interventions were made by his students. In Odessa, a monument is erected in honor of Vladimir Filatov and a street is named. A memorial museum has been opened in the house on French Boulevard, where V. Filatov lived.
V. Filatov Institute and a monument to the great scientist
2. The fact that Odessa was founded by Joseph De Ribas is known even to people far from the history of Odessa. But in the history of the city there were other people with this surname - relatives of Joseph the founder. His younger brother Felix also served in the Russian army (his third brother, Emmanuel, also served in it, but he died at Ishmael). Having retired in 1797, he came to the newly founded Odessa. Felix De Ribas was a very active person. He managed to bring the first foreign merchant ships to the then unknown Odessa. The younger De Ribas promoted branches of agriculture that were new for Russia, such as silk weaving. At the same time, Felix was absolutely disinterested and looked like a black sheep among the then officials. Moreover, he created the City Garden at his own expense. Felix De Ribas gained particular popularity among the townspeople during the plague epidemic, selflessly fighting the epidemic. Felix's grandson Alexander De Ribas wrote the famous collection of essays “The Book about“ Old Odessa ”, which during the author's lifetime was called“ The Bible of Odessa ”.
Felix De Ribas, like his brother, worked a lot for the good of Odessa
3. From the age of 10 the first Russian pilot Mikhail Efimov lived in Odessa. After training in France with Anri Farman, Efimov on March 21, 1910 from the field of the Odessa Hippodrome made the first flight in Russia by plane. More than 100,000 spectators watched him. The glory of Efimov reached its climax during the First World War, which he went through as a military pilot, becoming a full George Knight. After the October Revolution of 1917, Mikhail Efimov joined the Bolsheviks. He managed to survive the German captivity and imprisonment, but his compatriots did not spare the first Russian pilot. In August 1919, Mikhail Efimov was shot in Odessa, where he made his first flight.
Mikhail Efimov before one of the first flights
4. In 1908, in Odessa, Valentin Glushko was born into the family of an employee. His biography well illustrates the swiftness with which the fate of people changed in those years (if, of course, they managed to survive). During the first 26 years of his life, Valentin Glushko managed to graduate from a real school, a conservatory in the violin class, a vocational technical school, study at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Leningrad University, become the head of the engine department of the Gas-Dynamic Laboratory and, finally, take the post of head of a sector at the Jet Research Institute. Since 1944, Glushko headed the design bureau, which created engines for intercontinental and then space rockets. The famous rocket R-7, on which Yuri Gagarin went into space, is the brainchild of the Glushkov Design Bureau. On the whole, Soviet, and now Russian, cosmonautics are, first of all, rockets designed under the leadership of Valentin Glushko, first in his design bureau, and then in the Energia research and production association.
Bust of academician Glushko on the avenue named after him in Odessa
5. Due to the large stratum of the German population, beer in Odessa was initially very popular. There is information that Odessa beer itself appeared already in 1802, but small, almost home breweries could not compete with imported beer. Only in 1832 the merchant Koshelev opened the first powerful brewery in Moldavank. With the development of the city, breweries also developed, and by the end of the 19th century, various producers were producing millions of liters of beer. The largest producer was the Austrian Friedrich Jenny, who also owned the city's largest beer chain. However, Enny's beer was far from being a monopoly. The products of the South Russian Joint Stock Company of Breweries, the Kemp Brewery and other manufacturers successfully competed with him. It is interesting that with all the variety of producers and varieties of beer, almost all beer rolls in Odessa were corked with caps produced by Issak Levenzon, who was also the chief treasurer of the synagogue.
6. At the end of the twentieth century, Odessa was the headquarters of one of the largest shipping companies in the world. More precisely, the largest ship in Europe and the second in terms of tonnage in the world. With 5 million tons of deadweight, the Black Sea Shipping Company would still be one of the ten largest shipping companies in 30 years, even taking into account the fact that in recent years container and tanker innovations have significantly increased the average displacement of commercial ships. Perhaps the collapse of the Black Sea Shipping Company will one day be included in textbooks as an example of predatory privatization. The huge company was destroyed at the very moment when exports from the newly independent Ukraine were growing at an explosive pace. Judging by the documents, sea transportation suddenly turned out to be catastrophically unprofitable for Ukraine. In order to cover these losses, ships were leased to offshore companies. Those, again, judging by the documents, also brought some losses. Ships were arrested in ports and sold for pennies. For 4 years, from 1991 to 1994, a huge fleet of 300 ships ceased to exist.
7. On January 30, 1945, the Soviet submarine S-13, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Alexander Marinesko, attacked and sank one of the symbols of the German fleet, the liner Wilhelm Gustloff. It was the largest ship sunk by Soviet submariners during the Great Patriotic War. The submarine commander, a native of Odessa Marinesko, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Marinesco was one of those people about whom they say “raved about the sea”. Without finishing a seven-year school, he became an apprentice of a sailor and began a free sea life. However, if everything was in order with the sea life in the Soviet Union, then there were certain problems with the freedom. At the age of 17, in 1930, Alexander was forced to complete his education at a technical school. At the end of the technical school, the 20-year-old guy was mobilized and sent to the naval command personnel courses. After them, Alexander Marinesko, who dreamed of long-distance travel on merchant ships, became the commander of a submarine. Such was the time - the son of I. V. Stalin, Yakov Dzhugashvili, also dreamed of building roads, but he had to go to the artillery. Marinesko went to the submarine, where he was awarded two Orders of the Red Star and the Order of Lenin (he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously in 1990). In Odessa, a descent and a nautical school are named after the legendary submariner. At the beginning of the Descent of Marinesko there is a monument to the hero-submariner. Memorial plaques were installed at the school where he studied and at the house on Sofievskaya Street, where Marinesko lived for 14 years.
Monument to Alexander Marinesco
8. The first car appeared on the streets of Odessa in 1891. In St. Petersburg, this happened four years later, and in Moscow, eight years later. After some confusion, local authorities realized the benefits that the new transport could bring. Already in 1904, 47 car owners paid a tax for their self-propelled carriages - 3 rubles for each horsepower of the engine. I must say, the authorities had a conscience. The power of the motors increased continuously, but the tax rates were also reduced. In 1912, 1 ruble was paid for each horsepower. In 1910, the first taxi company began operating in Odessa, carrying passengers on 8 American "Humbers" and 2 "Fiats". A mile of run cost 30 kopecks, in 4 minutes walk - 10 kopecks. The times were so pastoral that they wrote directly in the advertisement: yes, the pleasure is too expensive for now. In 1911 the Odessa Automobile Society was formed. Two years later, Odessa motorists became famous for the fact that during a charitable run organized by the sister of Prime Minister Sergei Witte Yulia they collected 30,000 rubles to fight tuberculosis. With this money, the White Flower sanatorium was opened.
One of the first cars in Odessa
9. The first pharmacy was opened in Odessa two years after the city was founded. Half a century later, 16 pharmacies operated in the city, and at the beginning of the twentieth century - 50 pharmacies and 150 pharmacy stores (a rough analogue of an American pharmacy, for the most part selling not medicines, but small retail goods). The pharmacies were often named after the names of their owners. Some pharmacies were named after the streets on which they were located. So, there were “Deribasovskaya”, “Sofiyskaya” and “Yamskaya” pharmacies.
10. Although the history of Shustov cognacs began not in Odessa, but in Armenia, it was the acquisition by “N. Shustov with his sons ”of the trading and production facilities of the“ Partnership of the Black Sea Winemaking in Odessa ”. Cognac "Shustov" in 1913 was advertised in the same way as vodka 20 years earlier. Respectable young people in restaurants asked for Shustov's cognac to be served and expressed deep bewilderment at its absence. True, if the students who advertised Shustov's vodka immediately staged a brawl, the brandy promoters confined themselves to handing over a business card with the supplier's address.
11. The brilliant career of the genius violinist, teacher and conductor David Oistrakh began in Odessa. Oistrakh was born in the southern capital in 1908 into a merchant family. He began playing the violin at the age of 5 under the guidance of the famous teacher Pyotr Stolyarevsky, who later organized a unique music school for gifted violinists. At the age of 18, Oistrakh graduated from the Odessa Institute of Music and Drama and began his career as a musician. A year later, he performed in Kiev, and then moved to Moscow. Oistrakh became a world famous performer, but he never forgot his homeland and teachers. Together with Stolyarevsky, they brought up a number of outstanding violinists. On each of his visits to Odessa, Oistrakh, whose schedule was made for years to come, certainly gave a concert and talked with young musicians. A memorial plaque is installed on the house where the musician was born (I. Bunin street, 24).
David Oistrakh on stage
12. Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Malinovsky, who was born in Odessa, had a chance to leave her several times and return to his hometown. The father of the future commander died before his birth, and the mother, who got married, took the child to the Podolsk province. However, Rodion either escaped from there, or was in such a conflict with his stepfather that he was sent to Odessa to his aunt. Malinovsky began to work in a merchant shop as an errand boy, which made it possible to read (the merchant for whom Malinovsky worked had a large library) and even learn French. With the outbreak of World War I, Rodion fled to the front, where he spent the entire war, and the second half in the Russian corps in France. At the end of the war, Malinovsky followed the military path, and by 1941 he was already a major general, commander of a corps in the Odessa military district. In the same year, together with the Red Army, he left Odessa, but returned to liberate it in 1944. In the city of Malinovsky, the first thing he did was to find his aunt's husband, who did not recognize the stately general. Rodion Yakovlevich rose to the rank of marshal and the position of defense minister, but he did not forget Odessa. The last time he was in his hometown was in 1966 and showed the family the house in which he lived and the place where he worked. In Odessa, a bust of the marshal was installed, in honor of R. Ya. Malinovsky one of the streets of the city was named.
Bust of Marshal Malinovsky in Odessa
