Theme Week Ukraine – Odessa on the Black Sea
Wednesday, 15 February 2012 - 01:29 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: European Union / Europäische Union Category/Kategorie: General
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater © Pat Berger
🔊 Listen to this Post
Odessa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast (province) located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000.
The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement, was founded by Hacı I Giray, the Khan of Crimea, in 1240 and originally named after him as “Hacıbey”. After a period of Lithuanian control, it passed into the domain of the Ottoman Sultan in 1529 and remained in Ottoman hands until the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in the Russo-Turkish War of 1792. The city of Odessa was founded by a decree of the Empress Catherine the Great in 1794. From 1819 to 1858 Odessa was a free port. During the Soviet period it was the most important port of trade in the Soviet Union and a Soviet naval base. On 1 January 2000 the Quarantine Pier of Odessa trade sea port was declared a free port and free economic zone for a term of 25 years.
Residential building with the former Café Liebmann © Pat Berger
In the 19th century it was the fourth largest city of Imperial Russia, after
Moscow ,
Saint Petersburg and
Warsaw . Its historical architecture has a style more Mediterranean than Russian, having been heavily influenced by French and Italian styles. Some buildings are built in a mixture of different styles, including Art Nouveau, Renaissance and Classicist.
Odessa is a warm water port, but is of limited military value. The city of Odessa hosts two important ports: Odessa itself and Yuzhne (also an internationally important oil terminal), situated in the city’s suburbs. Another important port, Illichivs’k, is located in the same oblast, to the south-west of Odessa. Together they represent a major transport hub integrating with railways. Odessa’s oil and chemical processing facilities are connected to Russia’s and EU’s respective networks by strategic pipelines.
Here you can find the complete
Overview of all Theme Weeks .
Read more on
Wikivoyage Odessa ,
Wikitravel Odessa ,
1941 Odessa massacre and
Wikipedia Odessa . Learn more about the
use of photos . To inform you about latest news most of the city, town or tourism websites offer a newsletter service and/or operate Facebook pages/Twitter accounts. In addition more and more destinations, tourist organizations and cultural institutions offer Apps for your Smart Phone or Tablet, to provide you with a mobile tourist guide (
Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State -
Weather report by weather.com -
Johns Hopkins University & Medicine - Coronavirus Resource Center -
Global Passport Power Rank -
Democracy Index -
GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank -
Global Competitiveness Report -
Corruption Perceptions Index -
Press Freedom Index -
World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index -
UN Human Development Index -
Global Peace Index -
Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index ). If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at
comment@wingsch.net . Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.
Recommended posts:
[caption id="attachment_224379" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © flickr.com - Jorge Franganillo/cc-by-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Mondello is a small borough of the city of Palermo in the autonomous region of Sicily in Southern Italy. Its beach lies between two cliffs called Mount Gallo and Mount Pellegrino. The town was originally a small fishing village situated on marshland, but at the end of the 19th century it grew into a tourist destination. A number of Liberty style villas on the seafront promenade have made it one o...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_153462" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Alessandro Vecchi/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Labin, with a town population of 7,000 and 12,000 in the greater municipality (which also includes the small towns of Rabac and Vinež, as well as a number of smaller villages), lies on the east coast of the Istrian Peninsula, halfway between Pula and Opatija.
Labin developed from the site of the Roman settlement of Albona. Before and under the Roman occupation, Albona was an important commune. On ...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_154225" align="aligncenter" width="590"] 'Last Bratwurst on your way to America' © CTHOE[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Cape St. Vincent (Portuguese: Cabo de São Vicente), next to the Sagres Point, on the so-called Costa Vicentina (Vincentine Coast), is a headland in the municipality of Sagres, in the Algarve.
This cape is the southwesternmost point in Portugal. It forms the southwestern end of the E9 European Coastal Path, which runs for 5,000 km (3,100 mi) to Narva-Jõesuu in Estonia. Approximately...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_27005" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Dennis Jarvis/cc-by-sa-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom") is a former Greek Orthodox patriarchal basilica (church), later an imperial mosque, and now a museum (Ayasofya Müzesi) in Istanbul. From the date of its construction in 537 until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral and seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire. Th...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_152216" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Ålesund from Fjellstua © sgm[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Ålesund is a town and municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Sunnmøre, and the center of the Ålesund Region. It is a sea port, and is noted for its unique concentration of Art Nouveau architecture.
Ålesund town is the administrative centre of the municipality as well as the principal shipping town of the Sunnmøre district. Ålesund municipality ...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_164322" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Lighthouse of Cordouan © Yann Gwilhoù/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Cordouan lighthouse is an active lighthouse located 7 km at sea, near the mouth of the Gironde estuary in France. At a height of 223 feet (68 m) it is the tenth tallest "traditional lighthouse" in the world. The Tour de Cordouan, the 'Patriarch of Lighthouses', is by far the oldest lighthouse in France. It was designed by leading Paris architect Louis de Foix, and is something of a Renai...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_164452" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Tomb of Saint Nicholas © Sjoehest/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Myra was an ancient Greek town in Lycia where the small town of Kale (Demre) is situated today, in present-day Antalya Province of Turkey. It was located on the river Myros (Demre Çay), in the fertile alluvial plain between Alaca Dağ, the Massikytos range and the Aegean Sea. The ruins of the Lycian and Roman town are mostly covered by alluvial silts. The Acropolis on the Demre-plateau, the ...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_151453" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Welcome to Scotland sign - A1 road © flickr.com - Amanda Slater/cc-by-sa-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Scotland is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the south-west. In addition to the mainland, Scotland is made up of more than 790 islands inc...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_25080" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Turkish Parliament Building © T.C. Büyük Millet Meclisi[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Ankara (historically known with the names Ancyra and Angora) is the capital of Turkey since the Ottoman Empire's fall in 1923 and the country's second largest city, Istanbul being the largest. The city of Ankara has a population of 4,340,000 and its metropolitan municipality 4,960,000.
Centrally located in Anatolia, Ankara is an important commercial and industrial city. It i...
[ read more ]
[caption id="attachment_151269" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Robysan/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Sidon or Saïda is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Tyre and 40 km (25 miles) south of the capital Beirut. Its name coincides with the modern Arabic word for fishery. Sidon was a small fishing town of 10,000 inhabitants in 1900, but studies in 2000 showed a population of 65,000 in the city, and ar...
[ read more ]