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Industrial Port
From 2odessa.com The most comprehensive guide to Odessa, Ukraine
To the east of the passenger port, and down to the left of the Lanzjeronovskaya spusk is the restricted entrance to the industrial port.
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Ribas & De Volan busts
Flanking either side of the entrance to the industrial port are the two busts.
 Frantz De Volan 1753 - 1818 |  Joseph De Ribas 1749 - 1800 |
De Ribas and De Volan were both central participants in the foundation of the city.
- For more on Frantz De Volan and De Ribas, see the History of Deribasovskaya Street
- For more on Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov, founder of Odessa.
- Another plaque honoring De Volan is found at the middle of the Lanzjeronovskaya stairs
Through the gates, a visitor can just see a monument on the median of the road. It is difficult to get entrance to the port. The monument is to the dock workers who defended Odessa in World War Two.
Vakulenchuk Monument
Just right (east) of the industrial port entrance, shaded by trees, is a monument to Grigory Mikitovich Vakulenchuk.
The plaque states:
1877-1905
Vakulenchuk was one of the slain mutineer leaders on the Battleship Potemkin. In 1905 striking workers gathered at the port to witness the sailors bring ashore the body of Grigory Vakulenchuk. A fire started at the port and over 1,000 people died in the resulting chaos.
Potemkin Sailor Monument
This statue was moved in the summer of 2007 and replaced with the Katherine Monument. Newspapers report that the monument will be moved to the entrance of the industrial port. In September 2007 the monument was up the street from the industrial port, draped in a sheet, a shadow of its former self.
Potemkin Sailor Monument History
On June 13th, 1905 the Odessa authorities shot several workers from metalworking and machine-construction factories who had been on strike since the beginning of May.
On June 14th, workers retaliated against these shootings by engaging in massive worker stoppages and attacking the police with guns and rocks. That same day, there was a mutiny of the battleship Potemkin. That night the ship entered the harbor bearing the Soviet red flag.
On June 15th, the strikers enthusiastically greeted the ship, jamming the port, to view the battleship and rally behind the mutinous soldiers. The port workers provided the ship with more supplies. The mutinous workers of that port wanted assistance in the capture of the city. But the crew was hesitant, and only fired two shots from a gun aimed at the seat of the local Governmental Council, which missed their target. The striking workers gathered at the port to witness the sailors bring ashore the body of Grigory Vakulenchuk, one of the slain leaders of the mutiny.
By late afternoon, fires began in the wooden warehouses. Soviet-era publications blame the authorities for setting the fire. Western publications write that the fire was actually started by the mob. In the ensuing panic of the blaze, the troops cordoned off the port and opened fire on the crowds. Over 1,000 people were killed the night of June 15th, 1905, shot, drowned, or burned in the fire.
A squadron of Russian warships approached Odessa with the intention to capture the battleship Potemkin.
Through an appeal to the crew of the Potemkin, the Russian warships called them to arrest their mutinous leaders, but his flag signals failed to convince the mutineers.
In fact, one of the ships of his own squadron, the Pobiedonosetz, broke out of formation and followed the mutinous Potemkin. The Pobiedonosetz was soon overtaken by her crewmembers loyal to the czar and deliberately run aground in the harbor. The Pobiedonosetz was then boarded by local troops.
Battleship Potemkin
Isolated from the coast by the navy and short on supplies, the Battleship Potemkin sailed out of Odessa on the evening of June 18th.
On June 25th the Potemkin sailors landed their ship and became political refugees in the port town of Constanta, Romania.
The Battleship Potemkin was named after Prince Grigori Alexandrovich Potyomkin (Potemkin) (1739-1791). Because of his brief relationship with Katherine the Great, Potemkin quickly rose from a low rank in the Russian army to field marshal. He later became a statesman, accumulating great wealth.
(More on the social unrest in Odessa in 1905)
Why did the Potemkin sailors mutiny?
The Potemkin sailors mutinied for two reasons:
First, the entire Russian fleet was discouraged by the failures of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, and the incompetent naval leadership leading the war. A large wave of mutinous outbreaks had already occurred in the Russian navy.
Second, the conditions on Russian ships were horrible for the sailors.
The actual mutiny on the Potemkin started in a small way. The Potemkin sailors protested about rotten meat. It soon escalated into a shooting between the officers and the crew, during which Captain Golikov and most of the officers were killed, and the remaining officers were arrested. The same day the ship sailed into Odessa.
Potemkin Sailor Monument Construction
Architects for the statue were M. Volkov and U. Lapin. It was sculpted by V. Bogdanov,and unveiled in 1965, on the 60th anniversary of mutiny.[1] The memorial captures the first moments of the uprising when the commanding officers gave orders to shot the mutinous soldiers. By tearing off their hats before being shot, the sailors were symbolically casting aside the reigns of czarism.
The bronze figures stand proudly on a high granite pedestal. The pedestal bears Lenin's words:
The pedestal also reads:
Odessites call this monument "10 kopecks" because some of the sailors appear to be looking for money at the base.
Battleship Potemkin in fiction
The Battleship Potemkin or Battleship Potemkin (Russian: Броненосец «Потёмкин», Bronenosets Potyomkin), sometimes The Battleship Potyomkin, is a 1925 silent film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm. It is a fictional narrative film meant to glorify a real-life event that occurred in 1905, the Battleship Potemkin uprising, when the crew of a Russian battleship rebelled against their oppressive officers during the Tsarist regime. Potemkin has been called one of the most influential films of all time, and it was named the greatest movie of all time at the World's Fair at Brussels, Belgium, in 1958.
The most famous scene from the movie is the massacre on the Primorsky (Potemkin) Stairs, where ruthless Tsarist soldiers march down a seemingly endless flight of stairs in a rhythmic, machine-like fashion, slaughtering a crowd of innocents as they attempt to flee down the stairs before the soldiers reach them.[2]
- www.imdb.com/title/tt0015648 The Battleship Potemkin at the Internet Movie Database
- www.archive.org/details/BattleshipPotemkin Free download of the movie on the Internet Archive
The massacre on the steps is fictional.[3]
Memorial Plaque
Polsky Spusk 6A (Польский спуск)
(short street going to the industrial port)
| In this building writer, renowned scientist, professor Gregory Andriyovich Vyazovsky[4] lived from 1970 to 1996 [1919 - 1996] |  |
Photos
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From russian-women.net |
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In 1970 at the seaport entrance a monument was erected to the Odessa dockyard workers who fell in action during World War II. The three figures and a low pedestal symbolize a soldier, a sailor and a volunteer. It is the work of sculptor S. Golovanov and architect V. Mironenko.[5] |
Polsky 6 (Польский спуск) |
Polsky 6 |
Photo from russian-women.net |
Industiral port from riverships.ru |
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Photo from between 1890 and 1900, now available at the Library of Congress, Originally from the from the Detroit Publishing Company 1905. |
Notes
- ^ www.misto.odessa.ua/index.php?u=gorod/istoriya/ekater
- ^ From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battleship_Potemkin .
- ^ Fabe, Marilyn Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique, University of California Press August 1, 2004 ISBN: 0520238621, p 24 "...fictional bloody massacre on the Odessa Steps..."
Carr, Jay The A-List: The National Society of Film Critics' 100 Essential Films. Da Capo Press, January 1, 2002, ISBN: 0306810964, p. 29 "That there was, in fact, no czarist massacre on the Odessa Steps scarcely diminishes the power of the scene...It is ironic that he did it so well that today the bloodshed on the Odessa steps is often referred to as if it really happened." - ^ Alternate spellings: Georgi/Grygory Vyazovskiy
Ukrainian: Георгій Вязовський
Russian: в'язовський - ^ Odessa: Architecture-Monuments Photo Album, ISBN: 5771500925 p. 184
External links
- flot.sevastopol.info/eng/ship/predreadnoughts/potemkin.htm Battleship "Kniaz Potemkin Tavricheskiy"
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_Potemkin_uprising Battleship Potemkin uprising on wikipedia.
- www.libcom.org/history/articles/1879-1907-afanasi-matiushenko/index.php Biography of Afanasi Matiushenko (1879-1907) One of the leaders of the mutiny
- www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/jul/10d.htm The Latest News Report A First Hand News Article on the Mutiny
Location
- Right up Polsky street (Польский спуск) is the stairway up to the De Ribas monument
Continue your virtual tour by walking to the Pushkin museum
