Frantsuzsky Boulevard and Odessa dachas
Are you interested to know what is it - this Frantsuzsky
Boulevard in Odessa? Well, the Frantsuzsky Boulevard can tell
you a lot...
Odessa was often named the "small Paris". And really, the
gallant French (in Russian - Frantsuzsky) spirit was hovering
over the Old Odessa where women were called "Mesdames" and the
"Clico" champagne appeared earlier than the domestic wine did...
In the XIX century on the place of the today's Frantsuzsky
Boulevard there was just a verdant cozy district overlooking the
sea-shore. Rich Odessites had their dachas (villas and country
houses) there. It was always in fashion to have a dacha on that
virgin spot of Odessa. For example, on the territory of the
present Chkalov sanatorium first was the dacha of the French
merchant Zhan Reno where Alexander Pushkin was often listening
to the sea and where he met that charming young Odessa lady
whose profile then decorated all the Pushkin's poetic
manuscripts written in Odessa...
Later, on that very place there was the dacha of Grigoriy
Marazli - one of the best Odessa governors. It's interesting
enough that the Frantsuzsky Boulevard - the ideally straight and
rather wide road connecting Odessa center with Arcadia - got its
only turning to the right just across the Marazli's dacha. It
hadn't be so when it was planning... Why instead of leading
directly to Arcadia the Frantsuzsky Boulevard had got that
strange turning?
Today it's difficult to imagine how the road looked like before
1902. Then it even had another name - there was Malofontanskaya
Doroga (Small Fountain Road if to translate into English). And
that was not more than an out-of-town road, narrow and winding,
without any pavements and generally, rather ugly. But in 1894
Odessa got the new city engineer - Vasiliy Ivanovich Zuev. And
that was his idea to reconstruct the Malofontanskaya Doroga and
to turn it into the gorgeous boulevard with maples, wide
pavements and tram way.
Historically the Frantsuzsky Boulevard was the first road in
Odessa covered with tar. The new road-building was so important
event for the Old Odessa that all Odesa newspapers were writing
about that within several months. Widening and flattening of the
road required to cut some parts of the private estate. And many
rich Odesa landlords gave their lands as a sacrifice for that
construction! For instance, the famous victualer Skveder - the
owner of the "Fankoni"-caf