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

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. The street is named after

José de Ribas José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced very differently in each of the two languages: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , ...

, 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'' () is a Russian classic satirical picaresque novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, published in 1928. Its plot follows characters attempting to obtain jewelry hidden in a chair. A sequel was published in 1931. The ...

", two monuments to

Leonid Utyosov Leonid Osipovich Utesov, also spelled Utyosov or Utiosov, born Lazar (Leyzer) Iosifovich Vaysbeyn or Weissbein (, Odessa – 9 March 1982, Moscow), was a famous Soviet estrada singer, and comic actor, who became the first pop singer to be award ...

(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 Johann Gottlieb Lassalle (born Lassal; 11 April 1825 – 31 August 1864) was a German jurist, philosopher, socialist, and political activist. Remembered as an initiator of the German labour movement, he developed the theory of state s ...

. From 1938 to 1941, it was called

Chkalov Valery Pavlovich Chkalov (; ; – 15 December 1938) was a test pilot awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (1936). Early life Chkalov was born to a Russian family in 1904 in the upper Volga region, the town of Vasilyevo (the town is ...

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 restricted to use by people on foot or ...

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 Kachynskoho Street up to the Preobrazhenska and Sadova, crossing Italiiska, Rishelievska, Yevropeiska, Havanna, and

Ivana Lutsenka Lane Ivana is a feminine given name of Slavic origin that is also popular in southern Ireland, France, French-speaking Canada, the Mediterranean and Latin America. It is the feminine form of the name Ivan, which are both the Slavic cognates of the na ...

Every year on first of April the

Humorina Humorina (, ) is an annual festival of humor held in Odesa, Ukraine, on and around April Fools' Day (1 April) since 1973. The festival is marked by a large parade in the city center, performances by musicians, comedians, clowns and a large number ...

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