Odesa Crossword Puzzle for Kids

Odesa (; also known as Odessa, ) is a city in southwestern Ukraine on the Black Sea shore. It is the administrative center of the province of Odesa Oblast. It is a major port on the Black Sea. In 2024, about 997,000 people lived in Odesa.

Its leader is the chief of the "city military administration", Serhiy Lysak (as of October 15, 2025); Earlier, an elected mayor had been in power.

Overview

Odesa is a warm water port. However, it is thought to be of small military value. Since Turkey controls the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, NATO can control ships moving between Odesa and the Mediterranean Sea.

The city has two important ports: Odesa itself and Pivdennyi Seaport, which used to be called Yuzhne. In December 2021, Pivdennyi port handled 5.77 million tons of cargo. Another important port, Chornomorsk, is in the same oblast, to the south-west of Odesa. Railways and pipelines come to these ports. Pipelines connect Odesa's oil and chemical factories to those of both Russia and the European Union.

Odesa is the fifth-largest city in Ukraine and is important in the country's trading. In the 19th century, it was the fourth city of Imperial Russia. It was just smaller than Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Warsaw. Its old buildings appear to be more Mediterranean than Russian and were made like French and Italian buildings.

History

A very old Greek colony named Olbia (glorious) was perhaps on the modern site of Odesa. Many monuments link this place to the Eastern Mediterranean.

In the Middle Ages, theslands were a part of the Kievan Rus, Galich and Volyn Principality, the Golden Horde, the Great Lithuanian Principality, the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire. The Crimean Tatars traded there in the 14th century. At the time of the Russian–Ottoman wars, the lands were captured by Russia. That was at the end of the 18th century.

From 1819 to 1858, Odesa was a free port. During the Soviet times, it was the most important port of trade in the Soviet Union and a Soviet naval base. On January 1, 2000, the Quarantine Pier of Odesa trade sea port was made a free port and free economic zone for 25 years.

In the 15th century AD, nomadic tribes of the Nogays, under the government of the Khanate of Crimea, lived there. During the reign of Khan Haci I Giray, he was in danger from the Golden Horde and the Ottoman Turks. To get help, the khan gave Odesa to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The place now called Odesa was then named Khadjibey. It was part of the Dykra region. Few people lived in that region. They were part of the Turkic tribes. The land was mostly empty steppes.

The Ottoman Empire controlled Khadjibey after 1529. The nearby region Khadjibey was named Yedisan. In the middle of the 18th century, the Ottomans rebuilt a fortress at Khadjibey. It was named Eni Dunia.

Geography and features

Odesa (Google Map) is above the hills overlooking a small harbor. It is approximately 31 km (19 mi.) north of the estuary of the Dniester river and some 443 km (275 mi) south of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.Odesa has a continental climate (Dfa in the Köppen climate classification) with average temperatures in January of -2 °C (29 °F), and July of 22 °C (73 °F). It averages only 350 mm (14 in) rain annually.

Most people speak Russian, with Ukrainian being less common despite being an official language in Ukraine. The city is a mix of many nationalities and ethnic groups, including Ukrainians, Russians, Jews, Greeks, Moldovans, Bulgarians, Armenians and Turks.

Culture

Odesa is a popular tourist destination. It has many resorts in and around the city. The Tolstoy, Vorontsov, and Potocki families owned palaces in Odesa. They are still open for visits from the public.

Notable people

The writer Isaac Babel was born in the city. It has also produced several famous musicians, including the violinists Nathan Milstein, Mischa Elman and David Oistrakh, and the pianists Benno Moiseiwitsch, Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels. The chess player Efim Geller was born in the city. All listed, except for Richter, are representatives of the city's Jewish community.

The most popular Russian show-business people from Odesa are Yakov Smirnoff (comedian), Mikhail Zhvanetsky (legendary humorist writer, who began his career as port engineer) and Roman Kartsev (comedian). Their success in 1970s contributed to Odesa's status of a "capital of Soviet humour". Later, several humour festivals were established in the city, including the celebration of April Fools' Day.

Tourism

Most of the city's 19th century houses were built of limestone mined nearby. Abandoned mines were later used and broadened by local smugglers. This created a complicated labyrinth of underground tunnels beneath Odesa, known as "catacombs". They are a now a great attraction for extreme tourists. Such tours, however, are not officially sanctioned and are dangerous because the layout of the catacombs has not been fully mapped and the tunnels themselves are unsafe. These tunnels are a primary reason why subway was never built in Odesa.

Economy

The economy of Odesa is based on its port and its close distance to nearby ice-free ports in the mouths of the Dnieper, the Southern Bug, the Dniester and the Danube rivers. During the Soviet period, it was the USSR's largest trading port. Since Ukraine's independence, Odesa remains the busiest international port in the country. Odesa is also a home to almost 5% of all IT companies registered in Ukraine. It helps the city to thrive and attract talented software programmers from other cities of Ukraine and abroad.

Text adapted from the Simple English Wikipedia article “Odesa” (revision 10887453, 2026-06-14), authors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.