©Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd

Odesa & Southern Одеса & Південна Україна POP 4.7 MILLION / AREA: 86,300 SQ KM

Why Go? Odesa ...... 140 Ukrainian nationalists scowl at any mention of Russian Around Odesa ...... 153 empress Catherine the Great, but there’s no denying South- ern Ukraine wouldn’t be what it is today without her. This Mykolayiv ...... 154 chunk of no-man’s-land between the Cossacks and Crimea Kherson ...... 154 formed part of her late-18th-century territorial acquisi- Askaniya Nova ...... 155 tions, opening up the balmy Black Sea to a bronchitic St Southern Bessarabia 156 Petersburg. Catherine dispatched lover Grygory Potemkin Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky 156 and a multicultural posse of foreigners to civilise and popu- late the coast; Potemkin founded Odesa, but died before it Vylkovo ...... 156 was started. Izmayil ...... 158 Odesa is still Ukraine’s most multicultural city, as well as the self-declared Ukrainian capital of both hedonism and humour. Hedonists fl ock down from Kyiv for the sandy Best Places to Eat beaches and wicked nightlife; the humour in this oh-so- & Drink Russian city is tougher to fi nd. It’s not all about Odesa’s energy and attitude: the south » K o m p o t ( p 1 4 9 ) is also home to three major river estuaries, the most spec- » Shkaf (p150 ) tacular being the Danube Delta, a birdwatcher’s paradise. » Shuzz (p150 ) When to Go? » Balalaika (p149 ) Odesa °C/°F Te m p Rainfall inches/mm Best Places to 30/86 12/300

Stay 20/68 8/200 » Hotel Londonskaya 10/50

(p 147 ) 0/32 4/100 » Hotel Ayvazovsky (p147 ) -10/14

» Mozart Hotel (p146 ) -20/-4 0 » Pelikan Tour (p 158 ) J FDNOSAJJMAM

January Feel the April Witness October- warm mist drift Ukraine’s funny November Arrive onto the Black side at Odesa’s in time for the Sea’s deserted Carnival Humo- bird migration in beaches. rina festival of the impressive humour. Danube Delta. e# 0120km 140 #\ 060miles #\ Balta Pervomaysk #] Zaporizhzhya ^# #\ Kotovsk Kryvy Rih #\

Tyli Pi #\ l Marhanets

Voznesensk u vdenny B h h ul n I ts u le #\ h u Berezivka h Chişinău n #_ Tyluhulsky Mykolayiv I Kakhovske lyman ^# Reservoir Tiraspol l #] Kuyalhytsky a n #\ lyman a Kakhovka Kherson k #\ Ochakiv Nova Kakhovka Khadzhybeysky #\ ^# #3 y lyman k Askaniya s #\ #\ Hola #÷ #6 #^#1 Odesa v 2 Nova Heroyske ÷# o Prystan h Reserve #\ a 6 Illichivsk Black Sea Bilhorod- K Perekop Novooleksiyivka #\ Biosphere #\ #4 Dnistrovsky Skadovsk Isthmus #\ Dnistrovsky Reserve #] #\ Southern lyman Henychesk Sea Bessarabia #\ Karkinit Krasnoperokopsk of #\ Bolhrad Lake Black Sea Gulf Azov #\ Lake Sasyk (Chorne More) Dzhankoy Yalpuh Vylkovo Nyzhnyohirsky Lake #5#\ #\ 66Izmayil Chornomorske r #\ Kahul #\ ÷#Dunaysky y Point lh Danube NP a River Tarkhankut S Sk Odesa & Southern Ukraine Highlights

ODESA & SOUTHERN UKRAINE 1 Join the tanning and 3 Make an ascent of the 5 Try to keep your feet dry party66 fest on Odesa’s Potemkin Steps (p 141 ) – in Vylkovo (p 156 ), epicentre beaches (p145 ) setting for one of cinema’s of the Danube Delta 2 Spot zebra and bison on most famous scenes Biosphere Reserve safari at the Askaniya Nova 4 Launch an assault on the 6 Crawl the bars and Reserve (p 155 ) beefy ramparts of Bilhorod- restaurants in and around Dnistrovsky Fortress Odesa’s vul Derybasivska (p 156 ) (p 141 )

makes up for that with sheer panache, and Odesa ОДЕСА Odesans are known across the old USSR for POP: 1 MILLION being stylish, funny, savvy and not easily Odesa is a city straight from literature – an impressed. energetic, decadent boomtown. Its famous But let’s not get carried away here. Bar- Potemkin Steps sweep down to the Black celona or Brighton it ain’t, and the city does Sea and Ukraine’s biggest commercial port. have a distinctly seedy feel. Prostitutes, con Behind them, a cosmopolitan cast of char- artists, drug dealers and the mob have all acters makes merry among pastel neoclas- found their niche here, and the city is a mag- sical buildings lining a geometrical grid of net for sex tourists, wife hunters and general leafy streets. ne’er-do-wells from around the world. Also, Immigrants from all over were nowhere else in Ukraine do the police hassle invited to make their fortune here when foreigners to such an extent, something you Odesa was founded in the late 18th century might experience fi rsthand should you head by ’s Catherine the Great. These new to the beaches in the evening. inhabitants gave Russia’s southern window on the world a singular, subversive nature. History As well as becoming a duty-free port, Catherine the Great imagined Odesa as the Odesa also attracted ordinary holiday- St Petersburg of the South. Her lover, Gen- makers with its sunny climate and sandy eral Grygory Potemkin, laid the ground- beaches. True, the city’s appearance grows work for her dream in 1789 by capturing tattier as you head south past half-empty the Turkish fortress of Hadjibey, which pre- sanatoriums towards its beachside night- viously stood here. However, Potemkin died clubs. However, this East–West crossroads before work began on the city in 1794 and his senior commanders oversaw its con-