Tales of Old Odessa: Crime and Civility in a City of Thieves

by Roshanna P. Sylvester

Odessa - founded by Catherine the Great, who insisted that her port on the Black Sea be named in the feminine - earned it's reputation for vibrancy. Sophisticated yet untamed, lively but dangerous, Russia's warm water port for trade flirted coquettishly with the West. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the city had become a volatile modern metropolis with an ethnically diverse population and a growing middle class. Known as the little Paris of the tsarist empire, Odessa was distinctly un-Russian in manner and disposition and strikingly unlike other imperial cities. Tales of Old Odessa reveals the inner life of this remarkable city in the years before World War I from the perspective of the people who lived there. How did Odessans understand the city and their place in it? What cultural influences flavored their sensibilities and shaped their communities? What did modernization mean in Odessa?

254 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 2005

Reviews

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating and gripping... racy history rocks!