Tag #128294 - Interview #78132 (Sophia Abidor)

My parents' families lived in Odessa. Odessa is my favorite town, the place where I spent my childhood and youth. Odessa is a big port on the Black Sea in the south of Ukraine. Odessa was founded in the 18th century on the grounds of the Tatar settlement of Khadzhi-Bei. [Editor's note: In the 14th century, the site where Odessa is today became a Crimean Tatar fortress and trade center called Khadzhi-Bei. In 1764 it passed to the Turks, who built a fortress to protect the harbor. It was taken by the Russians in 1789.] In the 19th century Odessa became the second biggest port in Russia after Saint-Petersburg and a big resort town. Its population constituted over 400,000 people. Odessa was also a cultural center in tsarist Russia. Novorossiysk University, one of the first universities in the south of Russia, opened in Odessa. The building of the Odessa Opera Theater is still one of the most beautiful in Europe. There were Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Italians and people of other nations in Odessa. Jews constituted a large part of the population.