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Description:
Beautifully engraved Certificate from the Societe D' Electricite D' Odessa issued in 1913. This historic document has an ornate border around it with a vignette of an allegorical women holding a lightbulb with an old sailing vessel, electric train and generators. This item is hand signed and is over 74 years old. Odesa observed its two hundredth birthday in 1994. The site of the present-day city had been settled by various peoples and tribes since prehistoric times. In 1415 the Ottoman Turks established a settlement called Khadzhibei. It was captured by the Russian army and a Ukrainian division of Kozaks during the Russo-Turkish War of 1787 to 1791. The Russians rebuilt it from 1792 to 1794 as a fortress and naval port and named it "Odessa" because they mistakenly believed that it was the site of an ancient Greek colony, Odessos. (In the Ukrainian language, Odesa is spelled with only one s.) Because of its strategic location, Russia considered Odesa "the southern window to Europe," and developed it as a port and as a planned administrative center. Its duty-free status in the early part of the 19th century encouraged imports, and by 1850 Odesa was the largest wheat exporter in the Russian Empire. The city grew rapidly; in 1861 it was the largest city on Ukrainian lands with 116,000 inhabitants. Fewer than half were Ukrainian or Russian; about 25 percent were Jewish, and over 25 percent were Bulgarian, Greek, French, Italian, German, Polish, and Moldovan. Nevertheless, in the second half of the 19th century a Ukrainian cultural movement gathered momentum; the city's Jewish and German communities also developed their own distinctive cultural forms. Odesa is a city of contrasts. Its stately 19th century classical architecture is set on orderly planned streets that are surrounded with green space, giving the city an air of elegance. Strikingly ornate buildings of the late 19th and early 20th century are reminiscent of Right Bank Paris. It's also a seaport with boardwalks and bathing beaches, a resort city with health spas. With it's balmy climate, seaside vistas and sandy beaches, and year round lively street life, Odesa has an ambience more Mediterranean than Slavic. Odesa is a city renowned for its scholarly, artistic, and cultural life. At the same time, it's a bustling commercial port with its share of urban blight and pollution. Its dependence on its industrialized waterfront give it a large blue-collar population as well as a reputation as a place where you can buy anything. One of the few planned cities in Ukraine, Odesa's central core is laid out on a grid whose spacious avenues are paved with granite and lined with acacia trees. The area contains a number of lovely Classical early 19th-century two-storied limestone buildings that house cultural and scientific institutions and governmental offices. The main street, with plenty of shops and pubs, is Derybasivska Street, which was named after the Frenchman De Ribas, who led the capture of Odesa from the Turks in 1789. The focal point of the city center is Prymorskyy Boulevard, a shady seaside promenade with many historic landmarks, that offers an 180 degree panorama of the port. Odesa's most recognizable landmark, the great Potemkin staircase, descends from the Prymorskyy Boulevard to the port. Odesa's reputation as a health resort dates back to the 1920's. Therapeutic ingredients in the eaters and muds along with the mild climate and beautiful beaches attracted vacationers and patients seeking seeking a cure from various ailments -- from arthritis to tuberculosis to skin disorders. Today numerous resorts, beauty spas, and sanatoria dot a 50-mile stretch of coast from the village of Fontanka north of Odesa to Lebedivka to the south. They attract hundreds of thousands of vacationers and medical patients yearly who seek health and beauty in hydro and mud treatments.
| Status: For Sale |
Reference#: socdeldod |
| Condition:
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Year:
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