Potemkin stairs in Odessa. 360° spherical Panorama
The idea of creating the great Potemkin stairs in Odessa belongs to the famous architect Melnikov. Potemkin stairs included in the layout of the Boulevard, and its project was approved by Nicholas I, the Emperor of Russia. The construction of the stairs was completed in 1841.
The author of the project of Potemkin stairs became the architect Francesco Carlo Boffo, who perfectly calculated all the proportions. It is known that the staircase had 10 marches on 20 steps and 10 sites. The length of the staircase is 142 meters, and a height is 24 meters. The Potemkin stairs led right to the seashore. Now staircase has the 192 steps - the remaining 8 steps were kicked to raise the Primorskaya Street to the present level.
Previously on the place of the Potemkin stairs in Odessa there was another one that was carved out of limestone. The staircase led to the Turkish fortress Eni-Dunya. Later it was replaced by a wooden staircase, which followed on the beach and consisted of 220 stairs.
Potemkin staircase has its unusual details. If you look at it from the top, only platforms will be visible, not counting the top march. The view from the top the railings seem to be parallel. The secret of these visual tricks consists in the fact that the staircase has been gradually expanded from the top to the bottom. If we look at the ladder from the bottom to the top, the platforms are not visible at all. You can see the waterfall of stairs, and it seems as if the staircase rose from here.
Optical illusion was made according to the idea of its creators. The length of the staircase was visually increased, so that it looked more imposing. To cover the steps and platforms used the stone from Trieste. The two-meter railings stairs were made of local limestone. During the reconstruction of the Potemkin stairs in 1933 the stairs were covered with the pink-and-gray granite.
Potemkin staircase - it is not only the name of it. At various times it had several different names. It was called City stairs, Giant stairs, Richelieu stairs and even the Boulevard stairs. Recently it has received the name after the film «Battleship Potemkin» by Sergei Eisenstein, since some scenes of the movie were filmed here.
The inhabitants of Odessa are proud of the fact that in their city there is such a magnificent creation of architects as Potemkin stairs, and many of the writers described it in their works - it is Alexander Grin, Mark Twain, Korney Chukovsky, Yakov Polonsky, Alexander Ostrovsky, Ivan Nechuy-Levitsky and many others.
