Deribasovskaya Street
Encyclopedia
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. The street is named after Josep de Ribas
José de Ribas
José Pascual Domingo de Ribas y Boyons known in Russia as Osip Mikhailovich Deribas was a Russian admiral of Spanish-Irish origin who founded the city of Odessa...
, who helped build the city, who was its first mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
and who lived on the street.
Next to the street is Odessa's first park, which was built shortly after the foundation of the city in 1803 by the De Ribas brothers, Joseph and Felix (Josep and Fèlix). This park has a fountain, bandstand, and several monuments, including a sculpture of a lion and lioness with her cubs, a chair commemorating the famous book "The Twelve Chairs
The Twelve Chairs
The Twelve Chairs is a classic satirical novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, released in 1928. Its main character Ostap Bender reappears in the book's sequel The Little Golden Calf.-Plot:...
", two monuments to Leonid Utyosov
Leonid Utyosov
Leonid Osipovich Utyosov or Utesov ; real name Lazar Vaysbeyn or Weissbein , was a famous Soviet jazz singer and comic actor of jewish origin, who became the first pop singer to be awarded the prestigious title of People's Artist of the USSR .-Biography:Leonid Utyosov was brought up in Odessa...
(a sculpture and also a phone which plays his music), and a monument to Sergey Utochkin, a famous pilot.
Derybasovska Street was previously named Gimnazska Street after the Gymnasium which opened April 16, 1804. It was renamed for de Ribas on July 6, 1811, being called Derybasovska or de Ribasovska or even Ribasovska. During the first years of Bolshevik rule (1920 - 1938) it was named after the German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle
Ferdinand Lassalle
Ferdinand Lassalle was a German-Jewish jurist and socialist political activist.-Early life:Ferdinand Lassalle was born on 11 April 1825 in Breslau , Silesia to a prosperous Jewish family descending from Upper Silesian Loslau...
. From 1938 to 1941, it was called Chkalov Street. Finally, on November 19, 1941, it was renamed Derybasovska.
Derybasovska Street runs from near Polska Street up to the Preobrazhenska and Sadova, crossing Pushkinska, Rishelyevska, Katerynynska, Havanna, and Vice-Admiral Zhukov Lane.
Interesting facts
- Derybasovska street was closed to auto traffic and turned into a pedestrian-only zone sometime in the spring of 1984. Prior to that, it was used not only by autos, but also by the city trolleybuses of route 1 and 2, which were moved to the neighboring streets after replanning.
- Every year on first of April the HumorinaHumorinaHumorina is an annual festival of humor held in Odessa, Ukraine on and around the April Fools' Day since 1973. It was invented in 1972 by the Odessa KVN team after the all-Union KVN contests and the corresponding TV show were discontinued....
procession goes the whole length of Derybasovska Street, which is packed with tens of thousands of onlookers and participants dressed in funny costumes.
See also
- Weather Is Good on Deribasovskaya, It Rains Again on Brighton Beach, a 1992 film