Exploring the catacombs in Odessa
No place transmits the intimacy of Odessa as its estimated 3.000 km of catacombs. The network of tunnels under the city and its surrounding region gather all aspects of Odessan history: mining of limestones, important political moments, crime, legends, bones of ancient animals, extravagant experiences such as a birthday party in the catacombs and wars (including the II World War). Enigma is not enough to describe what they preserve!
I’m grateful for Irina, who guided me along the tunnels and helped me to understand the history and facts around the catacombs in Odessa and why they are important to local history.
The catacombs are spread all over the city, but not interconnected. Initiated by the mining of limestones, that was used to build most of the local houses in Odessa until the 19th century, they started to be used as pathways for local smugglers after abandoned by the construction industry.
The walls sewed by modern machines are evidently smooth. Take a look at the picture below:
The one I visited is located at Razumovskaya Street, 33 — in Cyrillic Разумовская, 33 — under 30 meters of depth.
No catacomb is located in the city center since the mining was forbidden in central areas in the first half of the 20th century due to the damage the intensive mining was causing to the surrounding buildings.
During the Soviet period, the catacombs in Odessa acquired importance as perfect points for shelter in case of a nuclear attack, one of the biggest fears fed by the propaganda (from URSS and from the USA) in the Cold War. Along with the catacombs, it is exposed to folders communicating the Soviet propaganda and evacuation policies in case of nuclear war. In the former URSS, every city should have a bunker, and guess where were located the bunkers in Odessa?! Surely at the catacombs!
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, the catacombs have been abandoned by the local government despite their historical and touristic value. Currently, they are maintained by private initiatives. Moreover, the tunnels that were projected to be nuclear shelters, there are other tunnels not modified by reforms, the so-called wild catacombs.
It’s still possible to see doors that were used as secret passages by criminals in the old times and doors that connected to factories in case of a nuclear attack, as shown in the 2 pictures below.
Another interesting aspect I could see in the catacombs was a masonic drawing signing that masons used to meet there secretly due to the prohibition of masonry.
No less interesting was the written sign in Russian “проверено”, which means checked. There’s a story that bombs were hidden at the catacombs during the II World War and local soldiers went to check if the tunnels were mined (I don’t understand about guns, feel free to correct me if you know precisely).
PS: You can check the pictures I take on my Instagram account andref.anjos and through the hashtag #feelukraine.
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