ODESSA, a seaport of the Ukrainian S.S.R., in 46° 29' N., 3o° 44' E., on the southern shore of a semi-circular bay, at the north-west angle of the Black sea. Pop. (1926) 411,416. It has five harbours; the Quarantine, New Harbour, Pratique and Cabot age harbours are sheltered by two breakwaters, 4,020 f t. and 2,120 ft. in length. The Petroleum harbour is sheltered by a breakwater 84o ft. in length. There is very good anchorage in the inner roads and a floating crane with a capacity of 4o tons. There are two patent slips and a double-sided floating dock, lifting power 4,800 tons. The harbours freeze for a few days in each year, and the bay occasionally freezes. Navigation is interrupted on an average for 16 days per annum, though the powerful ice breaker now installed lessens this time. The climate is influenced by its proximity to the steppe, and is continental. Average Janu ary temperature 23.2° F, July 72.8° F, average rainfall 14 in. per annum. The exports are mainly grain, linseed, wool, cattle, sugar and timber, and the imports coal, naphtha, iron, machinery, agricultural implements, raw cotton, tobacco, manufactured goods and tea, coffee and other colonial goods. Coal cargoes are dis charged in the new harbour, several travelling steam cranes being fitted for the purpose. The Cabotage harbour is reserved for Rus sian coasting vessels. A repairing yard with a pontoon and fitting out basin is situated near the petroleum harbour. Improvements to the port are now being carried out, with a view to providing quayside and berths for 21 steamers, with warehouses and railway lines along the quay.
The town is picturesquely situated on a plateau 150 ft. above sea-level, which is intersected by ravines and forms the limit of the steppe region. The climate is milder than that of the rest of the Ukraine and in the vicinity of Odessa are numerous health resorts along the limans. In these limans, or former river mouths now cut off from the sea by the silting up of the rivers, are waters containing concentrated salt solutions, with high propor tions of magnesium and calcium salts, iodine and bromine. Their
mud is strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen and is highly beneficial to sufferers from rheumatism, nervous disorders and skin diseases. Spring gives the environs of Odessa a brief glory of brightly coloured blossoms but summer heat and drought soon parch the vegetation. The broad streets of the town have been planted with trees, peculiarly grateful in the brief intense heat of summer and in contrast with the general treeless condition of the surrounding steppe. The population is exceedingly mixed even for a seaport, and includes Great Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Poles, Germans, Greeks, Armenians, Tatars and Turks, among others.
In spite of its favoured position between the Dniester and the Dnieper estuaries, no further settlements were made until the 14th century, when a Tatar chief Khaji Beg or Bey founded a fort on the present site of Odessa. Olgerd, prince of Lithuania, captured the fort in 1396 and it remained alternately in the power of Lithuania and Poland until its capture by Tatars in the 16th century. During the whole of this period it continued to be an important export centre for grain, salt and fish. The Turks captured it from the Tatars in the 16th century and built a fortress Yeni-Dunia to protect the harbour. In 1774 during the Russo-Turkish War, the Russians captured the town, but re turned it to the Turks, finally occupying it and the whole territory between the Dniester and the Bug in 1789. A French captain, de Ribas, who had led the Russians in their assault on the town, was afterwards entrusted with the planning, in consultation with the French engineer Voland, of a military and commercial port, and a finely laid out Russian city replaced the former Turco Tatar settlement.