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Weep ye land of Rus for Odesa burns
Nero sits in the Kremlin as he destroys Russia’s and Ukraine’s collective history.
I am going to start with a controversial statement. One I am going to have to back up, and qualify, pretty quickly. Odesa is a Russian city.
Now it sits in Ukraine and in Ukraine it will remain and the population is mostly Ukrainian these days. It has a wonderful history, a history few cities possess.
On the site of Odesa there has been settlements back to antiquity. Either on the site itself or just near it existed a Greek settlement. Before the second Russo-Turkish war, there was a Turkish fort and town there.
But Odesa itself was one of the first masterplan design cities from scratch, as ordered by the Tsar in Moscow. As a warm water port and strategic location, the place was ideal and flourished. Inspired leadership by the the city Mayor Richelieu, who had fled the French Revolution to sign up with Catherine’s armies, cemented the development of the city.
It became a free port and a place of artisans and the architectural style is a precious resource for the world with a combination of neo-classical, baroque and art noveau. Such variety in architecture is rare. Istanbul certainly has it in parts as do some other trading ports in the Far East…
