Vulytsia Derybasivska ( uk, Дерибасівська) or De Ribas Street is a pedestrian walkway (street) in the heart of

Odesa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrative ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. The street is named after

José de Ribas Admiral José de Ribas y Boyons (6 June 1749 – ), known in Italian as Giuseppe de Ribas and in Spanish as José Pascual Domingo de Ribas y Boyons and in Russian as Iosif (Osip) Mikhailovich Deribas (russian: Ио́сиф (О́сип) Миха́� ...

, who was the builder of Odesa, the head of military and civil administration and had a house on this street. Next to the street is Odesa's first park, which was built shortly after the foundation of the city in 1803 by the De Ribas brothers, Joseph and Felix (Josep and Fèlix). This park has a fountain, bandstand, and several monuments, including a sculpture of a lion and lioness with her cubs, a chair commemorating the famous book "

The Twelve Chairs ''The Twelve Chairs'' ( rus, Двенадцать стульев, Dvenadtsat stulyev) is a classic satirical novel by the Odesan Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, published in 1928. Its plot follows characters attempting to obtain jewelry hidden ...

", two monuments to

Leonid Utyosov Leonid Osipovich Utyosov or Utiosov (russian: link=no, Леонид Осипович Утёсов, uk, link=no, Леонід Йосипович Утьосов); real name Lazar (Leyzer) Iosifovich Vaysbeyn or Weissbein ()) (, Odesa – 9 March ...

(a sculpture and also a phone which plays his music), and a monument to Sergey Utochkin, a famous pilot.

History

Derybasivska Street was previously named Gimnazskaya (Gimnazicheskaya) Street after the Gymnasium which opened April 16, 1804. It was renamed for de Ribas on July 6, 1811, being called Deribasovskaya or de Ribasovskaya or just Ribasovskaya. During the first years of Bolshevik rule (1920–1938) it was named after the German socialist

Ferdinand Lassalle Ferdinand Lassalle (; 11 April 1825 – 31 August 1864) was a Prussian-German jurist, philosopher, socialist and political activist best remembered as the initiator of the social democratic movement in Germany. "Lassalle was the first man in Ger ...

. From 1938 to 1941, it was called

Chkalov Valery Pavlovich Chkalov ( rus, Валерий Павлович Чкалов, p=vɐˈlʲerʲɪj ˈpavləvʲɪtɕ ˈtɕkaləf; – 15 December 1938) was a test pilot awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (1936). Early life Chkalov was bo ...

Street. Finally, on November 19, 1941, it was renamed Derybasivska. Derybasivska street was closed to car traffic and turned into a

pedestrian zone Pedestrian zones (also known as auto-free zones and car-free zones, as pedestrian precincts in British English, and as pedestrian malls in the United States and Australia) are areas of a city or town reserved for pedestrian-only use and in whi ...

in the spring of 1984. Prior to that, it was used not only by cars, but also by the city trolleybuses of route 1 and 2, which were moved to the neighbouring streets after replanning. Derybasivska Street runs from near Polska Street up to the Preobrazhenska and Sadova, crossing Pushkinska, Rishelievska, Katerynynska, Havanna, and Vice-Admiral Zhukov Lane. Cp odessa rue de ribas

Every year on first of April the

Humorina Humorina (russian: Юморина, translit=Yumorina, uk, Гуморина) is an annual festival of humor held in Odesa, Ukraine, on and around the April Fools' Day since 1973. The festival is marked by a large parade in the city center, perfor ...

procession goes the whole length of Derybasivska Street, which is packed with tens of thousands of onlookers and participants dressed in funny costumes.

History

References

See also