constituting the immediate approach to Stettin. Vessels drawing 24 ft. are now able to go right up to Stettin. In 1905 a project was sanctioned for improving the communication between Berlin and Stettin by widening and deepening the lower course of the river and then connecting this by a canal with Berlin. Another project, born at the same time, is one for the canalization of the upper course of the Oder. About 4,000,000 tons of merchandize pass through Breslau (up and down) on the Oder in the year.
See Der Oderstrom, sein Stromgebiet und seine wichtigsten Nebenflüsse; hydrographische, wasserwirtschaftliche und wasserrechtliche Darstellung (Berlin, 1896).
ODERBERG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Brandenburg, on the Alte Oder, 2 m. from Bralitz, a station 44 m. N.W. from Frankfort-on-Oder, by the railway to Angermünde. Pop. (1905) 4,015. It has a fine Gothic church, dedicated to St Nicholas, and the ruins of an ancient castle, called Bärenkasten. Oderberg is an important emporium for the Russian timber trade.
ODESCALCHI-ERBA, the name of a Roman princely family
of great antiquity. They are supposed to be descended from
Enrico Erba, imperial vicar in Milan in 1165. Alessandro
Erba married Lucrezia Odescalchi, sister of Pope Innocent
IX., in 1709, who is believed to have been descended from
Giorgio Odescalchi (floruit at Como in 1290). The title of prince
of the Holy Roman Empire was conferred on Alessandro in
1714, and that of duke of Syrmium in Hungary in 1714, with the
qualification of “serene highness.” The head of the family
now bears the titles of Fürst Odescalchi, duke of Syrmium,
prince of Bassano, &c., and he is an hereditary magnate of
Hungary and a grandee of Spain; the family, which is one
of the most important in Italy, owns the Palazzo Odescalchi
in Rome, the magnificent castle of Bracciano, besides large
estates in Italy and Hungary.
See A. von Reumont, Geschichte der Stadt Rom (Berlin, 1868), and the Almanach de Gotha.
ODESSA, one of the most important seaports of Russia,
ranking by its population and foreign trade after St Petersburg,
Moscow and Warsaw. It is situated in 46° 28′ N. and 30° 44′ E.,
on the southern shore of a semi-circular bay, at the north-west
angle of the Black Sea, and is by rail 1017 m. S.S.W. from Moscow
and 610 S. from Kiev. Odessa is the seaport for the basins
of two great rivers of Russia, the Dnieper, with its tributary
the Bug, and the Dniester (20 m. to S.). The entrances to the
mouths of both these offering many difficulties for navigation,
trade has from the remotest antiquity selected this spot, which
is situated half-way between the two estuaries, while the level
surface of the neighbouring steppe allows easy communication
with the lower parts of both rivers. The bay of Odessa, which
has an area of 14 sq. m. and a depth of 30 ft. with a soft bottom,
is a dangerous anchorage on account of its exposure to easterly
winds. But inside it are six harbours—the quarantine harbour,
new harbour, coal harbour and “practical” harbour, the
first and last, on the S. and N. respectively, protected by moles,
and the two middle harbours by a breakwater. Besides these,
there are the harbour of the principal shipping company—the
Russian Company for Navigation and Commerce, and the
petroleum harbour. The harbours freeze for a few days in winter,
as also does the bay occasionally, navigation being interrupted
every year for an average of sixteen days; though this is
materially shortened by the use of an ice-breaker. Odessa
experiences the influence of the continental climate of the
neighbouring steppes; its winters are cold (the average temperature
for January being 23·2° F., and the isotherm for the entire
season that of Königsberg), its summers are hot (72·8° in July),
and the yearly average temperature is 48·5°. The rainfall is
scanty (14 in. per annum). The city is built on a terrace 100 to
155 ft. in height, which descends by steep crags to the sea, and
on the other side is continuous with the level of the “black
earth” steppe. Catacombs, whence sandstone for building
has been taken, extend underneath the town and suburbs, not
without some danger to the buildings.
The general aspect of Odessa is that of a wealthy west-European city. Its chief embankment, the Nikolai boulevard, bordered with tall and handsome houses, forms a fine promenade. The central square is adorned with a statue of Armand, duc de Richelieu (1826), who was governor of Odessa in 1803–1814. A little back from the sea stands a fine bronze statue of Catherine II. (1900). A magnificent flight of nearly 200 granite steps leads from the Richelieu monument down to the harbours. The central parts of the city have broad streets and squares, bordered with fine buildings and mansions in the Italian style, and with good shops. The cathedral, founded in 1794 and finished in 1809, and thoroughly restored in 1903, can accommodate 5000 persons; it contains the tomb of Count Michael Vorontsov, governor-general from 1823 to 1854, who contributed much towards the development and embellishment of the city. The “Palais Royal,” with its parterre and fountains, and the spacious public park are fine pleasure-grounds, whilst in the ravines that lead down to the sea cluster the houses of the poorer classes. The shore is occupied by immense granaries, some of which look like palaces, and large storehouses take up a broad space in the west of the city. Odessa consists (i.) of the city proper, containing the old fort (now a quarantine establishment) and surrounded by a boulevard, where was formerly a wall marking the limits of the free port; (ii.) of the suburbs Novaya and Peresyp, extending northward along the lower shore of the bay; and (iii.) of Moldavanka to the south-west. The city, being in a treeless region, is proud of the avenues of trees that line several of its streets and of its parks, especially of the Alexander Park, with a statue of Alexander II. (1891), and of the summer resorts of Fontaine, Arcadia and Langeron along the bay. Odessa is rising in repute as a summer sea-bathing resort, and its mud-baths (from the mud of the limans or lagoons) are considered to be efficacious in cases of rheumatism, gout, nervous affections and skin diseases. The German colonies Liebenthal and Lustdorf are bathing-places.
Odessa is the real capital, intellectual and commercial, of so-called Novorossia, or New Russia, which includes the governments of Bessarabia and Kherson. It is the see of an archbishop of the Orthodox Greek Church, and the headquarters of the VIII. army corps, and constitutes an independent “municipal district” or captaincy, which covers 195 sq. m. and includes a dozen villages, some of which have 2000 to 3000 inhabitants each. It is also the chief town of the Novorossian (New Russian) educational district, and has a university, which replaced the Richelieu Lyceum in 1865, and now has over 1700 students.
In 1795 the town had only 2250 inhabitants; in 1814, twenty years after its foundation, it had 25,000. The population has steadily increased from 100,000 in 1850, 185,000 in 1873, 225,000 in 1884, to 449,673 in 1900. The great majority of inhabitants are Great Russians and Little Russians; but there are also large numbers of Jews (133,000, exclusive of Karaites), as well as of Italians, Greeks, Germans and French (to which nationalities the chief merchants belong), as also of Rumanians, Servians, Bulgarians, Tatars, Armenians, Lazes, Georgians. A numerous floating population of labourers, attracted at certain periods by pressing work in the port, and afterwards left unemployed owing to the enormous fluctuations in the corn trade, is one of the features of Odessa. It is estimated that there are no less than 35,000 people living from hand to mouth in the utmost misery, partly in the extensive catacombs beneath the city.
The leading occupations are connected with exporting, shipping and manufactures. The industrial development has been rather slow: sugar-refineries, tea-packing, oil-mills, tanneries, steam flour-mills, iron and mechanical works, factories of jute sacks, chemical works, tin-plate works, paper-factories are the chief. Commercially the city is the chief seaport of Russia for exports, which in favourable years are twice as high as those of St Petersburg, while as regards the value of the imports Odessa is second only to the northern capital. The total returns amount to 16 to 20 millions sterling a year, representing about one-ninth of the entire Russian foreign trade, and 14% if the coast trade be included as well. The total
