Moldavanka is a historical part of
OdessaOdessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .Odessa was founded by Hacı I Giray, the Khan of Crimea, in 1240...
in the
Odessa OblastOdessa Oblast, also written as Odesa Oblast , is an oblast of south-western Ukraine...
(
provinceOblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
) of southern
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
, located jointly on Malinovskiy and Primorskiy city districts.
The city of Odessa was officially founded in 1794 as an Imperial Russian naval fortress on the ruins of a former
OttomanThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
fortress named
Khadjibey. By January 1795, the new name was mentioned for the first time in official correspondence.
However, adjacent to the new official locality, a
RomanianThe Romanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian ; they are the majority inhabitants of România.In one prominent interpretation of the census results in Moldova, Moldovans are counted as Romanians, which would...
colony already existed, which by the end of 1700s was an independent settlement known under the name of Moldavanka.
Moldavanka is a historical part of
OdessaOdessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .Odessa was founded by Hacı I Giray, the Khan of Crimea, in 1240...
in the
Odessa OblastOdessa Oblast, also written as Odesa Oblast , is an oblast of south-western Ukraine...
(
provinceOblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
) of southern
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
, located jointly on Malinovskiy and Primorskiy city districts.
The city of Odessa was officially founded in 1794 as an Imperial Russian naval fortress on the ruins of a former
OttomanThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
fortress named
Khadjibey. By January 1795, the new name was mentioned for the first time in official correspondence.
However, adjacent to the new official locality, a
RomanianThe Romanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian ; they are the majority inhabitants of România.In one prominent interpretation of the census results in Moldova, Moldovans are counted as Romanians, which would...
colony already existed, which by the end of 1700s was an independent settlement known under the name of Moldavanka. Legend has it that the settlement predates Odessa by about thiry years and asserts that the locality was founded by Romanians from
MoldaviaMoldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
(hence the name) who came to build the fortress of Yeni Dunia for the Ottomans and eventually settled in the area in the late 1760s, right next to the settlement of Khadjibey (since 1795 Odessa proper), on what later became the Primorskii Boulevard.
The Romanians owned relatively small plots on which they built village style houses and cultivated vineyards and gardens. What was to become Mikhailovskaia Square was the centre of this settlement and the site of its first Orthodox church, the Church of the Dormition, built in 1821 close to the sea shore, as well as of a cemetery. Nearby were the military barracks and the country houses (
dachaDacha is a Russian word for seasonal or year-round second homes often located in the exurbs of Soviet and Russian cities. In some cases, they are occupied for part of the year by their owners and rented out to urban residents as summer retreats...
) of the city's wealthy residents, including that of the
Duc de RichelieuArmand Emmanuel Sophie Septemanie du Plessis, duc de Richelieu was a prominent French statesman during the Bourbon Restoration...
, appointed by Czar
Alexande IAlexander I of Russia , also known as Alexander the Blessed served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and Ruler of Poland from 1815 to 1825, as well as the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania.He was born in Saint Petersburg to Grand Duke Paul Petrovich, later...
as Governor of Odessa in 1803.
In the period from 1795 to 1814 the population of Odessa had increased 15 times and reached almost 20 thousand people. Colonist of various ethnies settled mainly in the area of former Romanian colony, outside of the official boundaries, and as a consequence, in the first third of the 19th century, Moldavanka emerged as the dominant settlement.
After planning by the official architects who designed buildings in Odessa's central district, such as the Italians Franz Karlowicz Boffo and Giovanni Torichelli, Moldovanka was included in the general city plan, though the original grid-like plan of Moldovankan streets, lanes and squares remained unchanged.
- It looked like an industrial backyard of Odessa, where the plants and factories vere located. The residents of this neghborhood were mostly the people who worked in those factories.
- Even in nowadays, Moldavanka's setting is mostly industrial. However, since some of the plants and factoreis come out of business today, they are demolished and high-rise living quarters and business centers come on their places.
Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Moldavanka was the center of the city's Orthodox Jewish quarter. It is also the setting of the stories in
The Odessa TalesThe Odessa Tales is a collection of short stories by Isaac Babel, situated in Odessa in the last days of the Russian empire and the Russian Revolution. Published in magazines in 1923-24 and as a book in 1931, they deal primarily with a group of Jewish thugs that live in the Moldavanka, a ghetto of...
and the play
Sunset-Plot:The play is sent in Moldavanka, Odessa's Jewish Quarter in 1913. The plot revolves around the volatile relationship between neighborhood mob boss Benya Krik and his philandering, alcoholic father Mendel Krik....
, both by
Isaac BabelIsaac Emmanuilovich Babel was a Soviet journalist, playwright, and short story writer who was acclaimed by some as "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry."-Early years:...
.