The Town Where Port Work Began on September 2, 1794: Odesa and Its Age as a Free Port

Odesa’s “birthday” is September 2. According to the Great Ukrainian Encyclopedia (Велика українська енциклопедія, VUE), construction of the port began on September 2, 1794, and this date has been celebrated as the city’s founding day since 1849. This article traces, through encyclopedias and news reporting, how this Black Sea port town emerged from a settlement built around an Ottoman fortress, how it grew during its era as a duty-free “free port,” and the 2022 removal of the empress’s statue from the city’s square.

From Kachybei to Hadzhybei

According to the VUE, the port of “Kachybei” (Качибей), on the site of present-day Odesa, first appears in documents in 1415. The Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, CIUS, at the University of Alberta; hereafter IEU) writes that the settlement and port of Kachybei arose in the 14th century, and that Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania built a fortress there in the early 15th century. In 1480 the Ottomans seized this fortress, and the name changed to Hadzhybei (Хаджибей). The Ottomans also built the nearby Yeni Dunya fortress (the IEU gives 1764 for its construction, the VUE 1766).

According to the IEU, in 1789, during the Russo-Turkish War, Russian forces together with Zaporozhian Cossacks led by Anton Holovaty and Zakhariy Chepiha captured this fortress and settlement. The area passed to the Russian Empire under the Treaty of Jassy, which ended the Russo-Turkish War (the IEU gives 1792, the VUE 1791; the treaty was concluded at the end of 1791, and the year differs depending on whether the Russian calendar of the time or the modern calendar is used).

1794: As a Port Town

According to the VUE, in 1793 construction of a new fortress began under Alexander Suvorov and José de Ribas (Ukrainian: Йосип де Рібас; 1751–1800, born in what is now Italy), a vice admiral of the Russian navy, to a design by the engineer Franz de Volan. In 1794, Empress Catherine II issued a rescript (рескрипт) ordering that Hadzhybei be rebuilt as a new port, and construction of the port facilities began on September 2 of that same year.

The town was named “Odesa” in 1795. According to the IEU and the VUE, this was because the ancient Greek colony of Odessos was thought to have stood on this site — one of several ancient-Greek-style place names that came into fashion along the northern Black Sea coast under Catherine II. The VUE notes that later research has shown the colony named Odessos actually stood in two other locations, near Varna (in present-day Bulgaria) and at the mouth of Tyliholske Bay, not where Odesa now stands.

The town was planned from the very start. According to the IEU, the plan de Volan drew up in 1794 became the basis for the urban plan adopted in 1803, and its streets were laid out in a grid. The IEU describes Odesa as “one of the few planned cities in Ukraine.”

The Duc de Richelieu’s Ten Years

In 1803, Odesa and its surrounding area became an independent administrative district, the “Odesa gradonachalstvo.” According to the IEU, its first governor was Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu (1766–1822), a French nobleman who had fled the French Revolution and entered Russian service. From 1805 he also held the post of governor-general of Novorossiya, and until his return to France in 1814 he promoted trade and agriculture and encouraged the settlement of Germans, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Jews. In France he later served as foreign minister and prime minister.

Richelieu’s name is preserved in the Richelieu Lycée, founded in 1817, which later became Novorossiya University (1865; today’s Odesa University). At the top of the great staircase leading down to the sea stands a statue of Richelieu by Ivan Martos, erected in 1828 (IEU).

40 Years as a Free Port (Porto-Franco)

In 1819, Odesa became a “free port” (порто-франко), allowing foreign goods to be brought in and out without customs duty. The VUE gives this period as 1819–1859, while the IEU’s entry on Odesa gives “1819–1849,” so the encyclopedias disagree on the end date. Both encyclopedias state that free-port status greatly expanded the town’s trade, particularly its imports.

According to the IEU, already by 1815 Odesa was handling more than half of all cargo passing through the ports of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Its main export was wheat, followed by wool. From the 1830s through the 1850s, Odesa became the largest wheat-exporting port on the Black Sea and in the Russian Empire.

People also gathered from many places. According to the IEU, in 1861 Ukrainians and Russians together made up less than half the population; about a quarter were Jewish, and more than a quarter were Bulgarians, Greeks, French, Italians, Germans, Poles, and Moldovans. The VUE also notes that in 1814 the Filiki Eteria, a secret society of the Greek independence movement, was founded in Odesa.

The connection between Odesa’s port and grain continues today. The attacks on the port in the summer of 2026 and export routes are covered in our article on grain export routes.

2022: The Year the “Founders” Statue Was Taken Down

In the center of town, Katerynynska Square (Catherine Square) held a monument called “To the Founders of Odesa,” featuring Catherine II at the center alongside statues of de Ribas, de Volan, Grigory Potemkin, and Platon Zubov. According to the public broadcaster Suspilne, the original monument was removed by the Bolsheviks in 1920, and a replica was erected in 2007 when the square was restored. In 2017, a district court in Odesa ruled the installation unlawful, and the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance also proposed its removal, but in 2019 the Supreme Court upheld the installation as lawful.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion, a movement to reconsider monuments commemorating the Russian Empire spread across Ukraine. According to Suspilne, the Odesa City Council decided on November 30, 2022, to remove this monument along with the statue of Suvorov. The monument was taken down from its pedestal over about three hours on the night of December 29, and was moved that same day to the grounds of the Odesa Fine Arts Museum. The 2023 law revising place names associated with the Russian Empire is covered in our article on the two place-name laws.

Odesa’s historic city center was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger simultaneously in 2023; this is covered in our article on Ukrainian cities and World Heritage, and the 1965 sister-city agreement with Yokohama is covered in our article on sister-city agreements.