Attractions of Odesa

The legendary Hotel Londonsky is located in the center of Odesa on Prymorsky Boulevard.

The building in the style of the early Italian Renaissance was designed by the architect Frants Boffo.

At one time, the Brazilian emperor Don Pedro II, Oleksandr Kuprin, Anton Chekhov, Theodore Drayzer, Volodymyr Mayakovskyi, Leonid Utyosov, Robert Lyuyis Stivenson, Isidora Dunkan, Ivan Ayvazovskyi, Dmytro Shostakovych and many other celebrities of the XIX-XX centuries stayed here. Hotel Londonsky still remains one of the most prestigious hotels in Odesa.

The Summer Garden with a fountain and old plane trees, where a summer cafe is open, is particularly cozy (it is better to book a table in advance for the evening).

"House with Atlanteans" in Odesa is considered one of the most beautiful residential buildings not only in the city, but also in the whole country.

The complex of profitable buildings on Mykoly Hoholya Street was created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by architects Lev Vlodek and Semen Landesman. The houses belonged to the Falts-Feyn family, the founders of the "Askania-Nova" nature reserve.

The "House with Atlanteans" became especially popular thanks to the statues of the sculptor Tovy Fishel that decorate it. The figures of the mighty Atlanteans, bent under the weight of the star globe, became the business card of Odesa.

On the house opposite you can also see Atlanteans supporting the balcony.

The House-wall or Flat House is the former profitable house of Rafalovych, which attracts tourists with its unique architectural feature.

When looking at it from a certain angle, a complete illusion is created that the building has only one wall - the facade. The best perspective on this optical effect opens from the intersection of Vorontsovsky Lane and Prymorsky Boulevard.

In 2013, Rafalovych's House-wall was recognized as an architectural monument of local importance in Ukraine.

The Museum of Interesting Science in Odesa is the first science-entertainment interactive museum in the south of Ukraine, where more than 130 unique interactive exhibits from the world of science have been collected.

If in other museums you can't even touch the valuable exhibits, here you can not only touch, check, feel and see everything in action. Both children and adults can conduct interesting experiments and unusual experiments.

The main task of the museum is to show schoolchildren and students that even the most difficult problems and the longest formulas can be fascinating, you just have to look at them from a different angle.

The Museum of Interesting Science aims to teach subjects of the natural cycle: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, mathematics and many other fields of knowledge.

The museum's laboratory hosts a Tesla show every day, and chemistry and physics shows are also being actively developed. In the planetarium, sessions of informative scientific films about space take place every hour.

In the summer of 2023, a Russian rocket destroyed the premises of the Museum of Interesting Science on Taras Shevchenko Avenue in Odesa. But with the exception of special rooms, the museum team managed to save almost all of its exhibits and after 7 months the museum moved part of its exposition to a new location and opened its first branch - the Experimentarium.

And already on April 12, 2024, he resumed his work in a new place - in the shopping center Arkadiya City, where you can see 50 more exhibits. Also, in the renovated Museum of Interesting Science, they plan to open a completely new exhibition "The World under a Microscope".

The Kostyantyn Paustovsky Memorial Museum is located in a building on a quiet seaside street in Odesa, right above Langheron.

The writer lived in the janitor's house of the neighboring house, which has not been preserved, from 1920 to 1922, during the Odesa period of his work.

The museum was opened in 1998 on the initiative of the public organization "Paustovsky World Society". The main exposition is dedicated to Paustovsky's book "The Time of Great Expectations" written in Odesa. It has more than 1,000 exhibits, including manuscripts, photographs, household items (beginning of the 20th century) and personal belongings of the author. In particular, the model of the janitor's house described by Paustovsky and the model of the motor ship "Kostyantyn Paustovsky" are presented.

Everyone can try to type "SOS" in Morse code using the famous telegraph key, as well as touch the hand washing machine used by Kostyantyn Heorhiyovych while fishing in the village of Sanzhiika.

The Memorial of the Heroic Defense of Odesa was opened in 1975 on the site of the 411 coastal battery that defended the city in 1941 during the offensive of Romanian troops.

Located on the southern outskirts of Odesa.

The memorial complex includes a museum, an outdoor exhibition of military equipment, a coastal defense battery, and a park.

The Museum of Military Glory and the Afghan War was opened in the premises of the Odesa Regional Union of Afghanistan Veterans in 2014, on the 25th anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.

The museum exposition includes 450 exhibits. These are Afghan newspapers, talk books, Afghan money, photographs, as well as samples of weapons and military equipment: anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, body armor, helmets, gas masks, etc.

The monument to the orange that saved Odesa is a modern monument in the center of the city.

The development of Odesa at the end of the 18th century directly depended on the completion of the construction of the sea port initiated by Catherine II, but during the reign of Emperor Paul I, funding stopped. In order to express to the tsar his "loyal diligence" and to ask for a loan of 250,000 rubles, the magistrate sent to St. Petersburg a train with the first oranges that arrived at the port in early February. At the end of winter, southern fruits fell to the tsar's court, money was allocated for the completion of the port, and Odesa was saved.

The savior orange moment was installed on Duma Square in 2004, but soon they decided to move it to Mykhaylo Zhvanetsky Boulevard.

The monument is an orange placed on a pedestal with the peel removed from one half and several segments removed. Instead of these particles, the figure of the Russian Emperor Paul I is inserted inside the orange. The sculptural composition includes three horses harnessed to the orange. The most famous buildings of Odesa are located on the orangery: the Opera House, the Transfiguration Cathedral, the colonnade of the Vorontsov Palace.

The monument to Empress Catherine II and her associates (Platon Zubov, Hryhoriy Potomkin, Frants de Volan, Yosyp Derybas) was erected for the 100th anniversary of the Odesa.

In Soviet times, it was replaced by a monument to the Potemkinites.

The revival of the monument in 2007 was accompanied by protests by national patriots who opposed the perpetuation of the memory of the oppressor who eliminated Ukraine's independence.

On December 28, 2022, during the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war, by the decision of the Odesa City Council, the monument to Catherine was dismantled and transferred to the Odesa Art Museum.

Mother-in-Law Bridge is the popular name of the pedestrian bridge over the Viyskovy descent in Odesa, which connects Prymorsky Boulevard with Zhvanetsky Boulevard.

According to legend, the bridge was built in 1969 by the order of the first secretary of the Odesa regional committee of the Communist Party, Mykhaylo Sinytsia, so that it would be more convenient for him to get from the boulevard through the ravine while visiting his mother-in-law.

The bridge vibrates noticeably underfoot when there is a large crowd of people. According to tradition, the newlyweds leave locks on the railings of the Mother-in-Law Bridge, symbolizing the strength of the marriage.

Nearby, there is a mini-reserve "Corner of Old Odesa", in which various elements of the city's decor are collected.

The Museum "Secrets of Underground Odesa" tells about the famous Odesa catacombs, on which stands the whole city. Their total length is estimated at about 2.5 thousand kilometers.

Most of Odesa's catacombs are underground quarries, in which the building stone rakushnyak, which was used to build most of the city's buildings, was mined. The system of catacombs also includes cavities of natural origin - karst and dilatancy caves.

At various times, the catacombs served as transshipment bases for smugglers, "raspberries" for gangs, places to gather underground, shelters for guerrilla and sabotage units, bomb shelters.

The museum in the dungeons on Moldavanka was established in 2013 by the military-historical club "Military Valor". Entering the catacombs, visitors are immersed in the past of the city. Here you can see the anti-nuclear bunker, go through the flooded part, visit the wild catacombs, visit the guerrilla parking lot and bandit raspberries and more.

The Museum of Maritime Glory was opened in the premises of the Odesa Maritime School named after Oleksandr Marynesko.

The organizers and founders of the museum were members of the Association of Submarines, who together with the school prepared the exposition.

The exhibition is devoted to the development of the naval fleet from the time of the establishment of the school until now. The main exposition tells about the Odesa submariner Oleksandr Marynesko, who carried out the legendary "Attack of the Century" during the Second World War. In 1945, the submarine S-13 under the command of Marinesko sank the German ship "Wilhelm Gustloff", on board of which there were more than 3 thousand soldiers and officers. As a result, significant damage was done to the fleet of Nazi Germany.

Entrance to the museum is free.

Museum of Odesa Modern Art was created in 2008 by businessman, intellectual and philanthropist Vadym Morokhovsky.

The exposition is based on the unique collection of works of the "second wave of the Odesa avant-garde" by Mykhaylo Knobel, significantly expanded during the museum's existence.

Of particular interest are the halls of non-conformist art of the 60s and 70s and the "New South Russian Wave" of the 80s and 90s.

A separate hall is dedicated to the legendary "fenced" exhibition of Valentyn Khrushch and Stanislav Sychov in 1967, which became the first unauthorized Soviet art action.

The Museum also has an exhibition hall and a gallery where contemporary art exhibitions, conferences and various art projects are held.

The Museum of Sound in Odesa is an exclusive collection of historical rarities of sound equipment, an exhibition of audio equipment, an exposition of all generations of sound carriers, a club of live music and musicians, a professional sound recording studio, a school of sound engineers and DJs.

The collection was assembled by Odesa sound engineer Vasyl Pinchuk, head of the Odesa regional organization of the All-Ukrainian Union of Sound Engineers.

The exposition presents gramophones and gramophones, radios and tape recorders, vinyl records, film cassettes, audio cassettes, CDs, posters, posters, record labels - with the logos of numerous companies and record factories that changed each other throughout the century.

The Museum of the History of the Jews of Odesa "Migdal-Shorashim" was opened on the initiative of the Migdal Jewish Community Center in Odesa.

His exhibition is located in a small apartment and reflects the history of the Jewish community, which is inextricably linked with the culture of Odesa.

The permanent exhibition includes about a thousand items: documents, photographs, books, newspapers, postcards, religious and household items, musical instruments, works of art and more.