Odessa (Ukrainian: Одеса; Russian: Одесса;) is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast (province) located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine. Odessa’s most iconic symbol, the Potemkin Steps (Primorsky Stairs) is a vast staircase that conjures an illusion so that those at the top only see a series of large steps, while at the bottom all steps appear to merge into one pyramid-shaped mass. The original 200 steps (now reduced to 192) were designed by Italian architect Francesco Boffo and built between 1837 and 1841. The Stairs are best remembered for a starring role in Sergei Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin, a fictional account of the city’s 1905 Tsarist massacre.
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