POTEMKIN STAIRS

The 'Potemkin Stairs' (, ''Pot’omkins’ki Skhоdy'', ) is a giant stairway in Odessa, Ukraine. The stairs are considered a formal entrance into the city from the direction of the sea and are the best known symbol of Odessa.^[1]
The stairs were originally known as the 'Boulevard steps', the 'Giant Staircase', Touring Odessa, , Yelena, Karakina, BDRUK, 2004, ISBN 966-8137-01-9 p. 32 or the 'Richelieu steps'. Prince Michael Vorontsov: Viceroy to the Tsar, , , , McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1990, ISBN 0-7735-0747-7 p. 119. Referencing USSR: Nagel Travel Guide Series, , , , McGraw Hill, 1965, p. 616

★ Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective, , Christopher M, Bell, Routledge (UK), 2003, ISBN 0-7146-5460-4 p. 18, 25

★ The Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin, , S Sebag, Montefiore, St. Martin's Press, 2001, ISBN 0-312-27815-2 p. 498 "The Richelieu Steps in Odessa were renamed the "Potemkin Steps"...

★ A Brief History Of Mutiny: A Brief History of Mutiny at Sea, , Richard, Woodman, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005, ISBN 0-7867-1567-7 p. 223
The top step is 12.5 meters (41 feet) wide, and the lowest step is 21.7 meters (70.8 feet) wide. The staircase is 27 meters high, and extends for 142 meters, but it gives the illusion of greater length. ^[2][3] Karakina, p. 31 "13.4 and 21.7 meters wide"
The stairs were so well designed that they create an optical illusion. A person looking down the stairs sees only the landings, and the steps are invisible, but a person looking up sees only steps, and the landings are invisible.^1[4]

Contents

History

Duc de Richelieu Monument

Quotations

Notes

See also

External links

History

Odessa, perched on a high steppe plateau, needed direct access to the harbor below it. Before the stairs were constructed, winding paths and crude wooden stairs were the only access to the harbor.¹
The original 200 stairs were designed in 1825 by F. Boffo, St. Petersburg architects Avraam I. Melnikov and Pot'e.^{1 [5] [6]} The staircase cost 800,000 rubles to build.¹
In 1837, the decision was made to build a "monstrous staircase", which was constructed between 1837 and 1841. An English engineer named Upton constructed the stairs. Upton had fled Britain while on bail for forgery. Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine, , Anna, Reid, Westview Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8133-3792-5 p. 61 Greenish-grey sandstone from the extreme northeastern Italian town of Trieste (at the time it was an Austrian town) was shipped in.¹⁴ Primorsky (Potemkin) Stairs
As erosion destroyed the stairs, in 1933 the sandstone was replaced by rose-grey granite from the Boh area, and the landings were covered with asphalt. Eight steps were lost under the sand when the port was being extended, reducing the number of stairs to 192, with ten landings.^{1 4}
The steps were made famous in Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 silent film ''The Battleship Potemkin''.
On the left side of the stairs, a funicular was built in 1906 to transport people up instead of walking. After 50 years of operation, the funicular was outdated and was later replaced by an escalator built in 1970.⁴ The escalator broke in the 1990s, the money for its repair was stolen, but it was replaced with a new funicular in 2004.
After the Soviet revolution, in 1955 the Primorsky Stairs were renamed Potemkin Stairs to honor the 50th anniversary of the Battleship Potemkin uprising. Karakina, p. 31 After Ukrainian independence, like many streets in Odessa, the Potemkin Stairs name was returned to their original name, Primorsky Stairs. Most Odessites still know and refer to the stairs after their Soviet name.

Duc de Richelieu Monument

Statue of Duc de Richelieu.

At the top of the stairs is a monument depicting the Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, a French nobleman who became Odessa's first Russian governor. The Roman-toga figure was designed by the Russian sculptor, Ivan Petrovich Martos (1754-1835). The statue was cast in bronze by Yefimov and unveiled in 1826. It is the first monument erected in the city. Duc de Richelieu Monument ^[7]Herlihy, p. 21

Quotations

Notes

Potemkin Stairs in Odessa, Ukraine, the landings are invisible from the bottom.

1. Odessa: A History, 1794-1914, , Patricia, Herlihy, Harvard University Press, 1987, 1991, ISBN 0-916458-15-6, hardcover; ISBN 0-916458-43-1, paperback reprint p. 140
2. Herlihy, p. 140 "12.5 meters wide and 21.5 meters wide"
3. Kononova, p. 51 "12.5 m at the top and 21.6 m at the bottom"
4. Odessa: A Guide, , G., Kononova, Raduga Publishers, 1984, p. 51
5. Kononova, p. 48.
6. Kononova confusingly writes on page 48, "The idea of an architectural ensemble with a broad flight of stone steps leading to the sea which links the high bank with the low shore and provides a gateway to the city, belongs to the well-known St. Petersburg 19th century architect Avraam Melnikov." But on page 51 writes, "The famous Potemkin stairs leading from the square to the sea and Uiltsa Suvorova (Suvorov St.) was designed in 1825 by F. Boffo".
7. Kononova, p. 48

See also

★ Depaldo stone stairs

★ FC Chornomorets Odessa

★ The Filatov Institute of Eye Diseases & Tissue Therapy

★ Odessa

★ Odessa Opera Theater

★ Seventh-Kilometer Market

★ Tsentralnyi-Chornomorets Stadium

External links

★ Odessa: A Guide, , G., Kononova, Raduga Publishers, 1984,

★ Potemkin Stairs