by Vladimir Sosnitsky
[RedStar] This happened in February 1795 by order of the Russian Empress Catherine II.
According to historical materials available in the collections of the Presidential Library, the settlement of Khadzhibey has been known since the 14th century as a place for ships to moor on the shores of the local bay. This territory then belonged to the Perekop Horde, which was led by Bek Hadji. Most likely, the village was named in his honor. Subsequently, it often changed hands: it was both Tatar and Ottoman, and in the second quarter of the 15th century it even became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The nobles renamed the settlement Kotsyubiev.
During the Russian-Turkish War after the fall of Ochakov, the Turkish fleet made its base the harbor of the Hadzhibey fortress (Hadzhibey, Adzhibey), which was a small place with a population of Tatars and Greeks, with a small pier and a high fortress wall, with three hundred people of the Turkish garrison and 12 guns. A strong Turkish squadron stationed in the roadstead, consisting of 40 ships at sea and 33 ships off the coast, covered the fortress from the sea. The capture of Hadzhibey made it possible to finally clear the coast between the Dniester and the Dnieper from the Turkish fleet.
Russian troops under the command of Major General Joseph de Ribas (Deribas) consisted of three horse and three foot regiments of the Black Sea Cossacks under the command of the chieftain Z. Chepiga and the military judge A. Golovaty, two infantry battalions and 16 guns of various types. In the rearguard of Deribas's forward detachment moved the main forces of General I. Gudovich, consisting of Major A. Merkel's battery, two cavalry regiments, three regiments of Don Cossacks and several infantry units.
On September 25 (September 12), 1789, Russian troops reached Peresyp and at four o’clock in the morning on September 27 launched an assault. At nine o'clock in the morning the Russian flag was raised over the fortress, and the Turkish fleet, after a shootout with Merkel's battery, went to sea. According to the Yassy Peace Treaty of 1791, Khadzhibey finally ceded to Russia.
In 1794, Vice Admiral I. Deribas received a rescript from the empress, ordering him to begin founding a city on the site of the Turkish fortress Hadzhibey
On May 27 (June 7), 1794, Vice Admiral I. Deribas received a rescript from the empress, ordering him to begin founding a city on the site of the Turkish fortress Hadzhibey. The rescript said: “We hope that you will not only carry out Our good assumption, but that, knowing how much prosperous trade contributes to the welfare of the people and the enrichment of the state, take care that the city you build will provide traders with not only a shelter safe from bad weather, but protection, encouragement, patronage and in a word everything depending on you in matters of their assistance; through which, without a doubt, just as our trade in those places will flourish, so this city will soon be filled with inhabitants.”
Deribas was appointed chief organizer of the port and city. In June of the same year, Deribas was also appointed army commander - chief of the Black Sea Grenadier Corps stationed in Khadzhibey, that is, he became simultaneously a naval, army and civilian commander. The rescript also approved the first architect of Odessa, F. Devolan.
On August 22 (September 2), 1794, Deribas and Devolan held the ceremonial foundation of the city. On this day, according to the historian of Odessa A. Skalkovsky, the foundations of the Big Pier, the Small Jete (a harbor for rowing ships), boathouses and a shipyard for repairing state-owned ships, two piers from the embankment for convenient mooring of merchant ships, two churches in the name of the saint were laid Nicholas and St. Catherine and the first furrow for the foundations of city buildings was made. Later, construction began on the quarantine building, customs house, admiralty store, hospital, cathedral church, magistrate and house for the chief commander.
I. Deribas attracted talented Russian and foreign architects and builders to build the city, began construction of a port and created the necessary conditions for increasing the urban population.
At the behest of Catherine II, the new city was renamed, receiving the name Odessa in honor of the ancient Greek colony of Odessos, which was once located on this site. The Empress wished to replace the masculine gender with the feminine gender. According to the most common version, this happened on February 7, 1795. Odessa, classified as a so-called assigned city, became part of the Tiraspol district of the Voznesensk province.
The new city was given privileges: exemption from taxes and military billets for 10 years, issuing loans from the treasury to settlers for the first establishment, permission for sectarians to perform divine services and build their churches. By the end of the 1790s, the city had a population of about 4.5 thousand. From the very beginning, Odessa became the main supplier of grain to the countries of Europe and East Asia. Under the mayor Duke Emmanuel de Richelieu, Odessa became the main port of the Russian Empire on the Black Sea. Gradually it turned into the fourth largest city of the Russian Empire.
During the Great Patriotic War, the defense of Odessa became one of the most striking examples of the heroic steadfastness of Soviet troops and the city's population in the fight against fascism. On December 22, 1942, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR established the medal “For the Defense of Odessa,” which was awarded to over 130 thousand people. The honorary title “Hero City” was awarded to Odessa on May 8, 1965.
Sometimes Odessa is associated with the original humor of its citizens. Odessa residents themselves are confident that the rapid flowering of their cheerful and ironic disposition is directly related to the mild climate, the presence of the sea and the national diversity of the population. They say that Odessa at different times was inhabited by people of 150 nationalities. Each of them spoke their own language, but everyone understood each other perfectly.