July 10, 2025, 10:04 p.m.
(Postcard from the 1910s from the collection of Andrii Krantov)
In pre-revolutionary Odesa guidebooks, it was often stated that Khadzhibey Park was a favorite vacation spot for many Odessans.
There are several versions of the park's origins. The first indicates that it was founded in Turkish times. According to the second version, the park was laid out on the banks of the estuary only in the middle of the XIX century.
In the illustrated guidebook Odesa (1900, published by D.I. Weiner), a rather interesting legend was cited in the description of the steam tram route to the Khadzhibey Estuary: "In one place, a small pine grove pleases the eye. There are seven pine trees, and the place is called that: "Seven Pines". According to legend, during the Turkish rule, a wealthy Turkish pasha lived here, and the locals even tried to look for a treasure. Apparently, there was a Turkish village not far from the Khadzhibey estuary: A Turkish bath was discovered during excavations on the land of the former Krepsa." We can assume that Weiner confused this bathhouse with the one on the corner of today's Nina Strokataya and Evropeiska streets.
Postcard from the 1910s from the collection of Andrii Krantov
However, since one of the first owners of Khadzhybey Park was the founder of the Botanical Garden in Odesa, Jacques-Louis Desmet, we can still assume that it was the Frenchman who planted the park here.
The first mud resort in Odesa began operating in 1834 on the shores of the Kuyalnyk Estuary, and since the Khadzhybey Estuary also had healing properties, the Estuary Department of the city hospital was opened on its shores in 1844.
The Odesa Bulletin of July 8, 1844, noted that in that year, not far from Desmet's Louisville dacha, the dacha of the merchant Karlsberg was rented, where up to 100 patients could be accommodated. So we can see that the resort in its first years was located not in the park itself, but next to it. Interestingly, Mr. Karlsberg owned a farm on the shores of the Kuyalnyk Estuary at that time. It was his dacha that the Polish writer Józef Ignacy Kraszewski visited in 1843.
The same Odesa Bulletin reported in 1856 that 157 people were treated at the Khadzhybey resort during the season, of whom 53 received "considerable relief" and 17 others received "some relief." The diseases that were treated there were also noted: chronic rheumatism, bone disease, ulcers, paralysis, tinea, fistulas, etc.
On the bank of the pond. Photo from 1932. From the collection of Andrii Krantov
In 1866, Khadzhibey Park was purchased by the city for 12,000 rubles and a department of the city hospital was located here, which was run by hospital residents. However, because the treatment and maintenance of patients was not cheap, the institution did not even cover its costs. Then the City Public Administration decided to lease the mud baths to private individuals. There was a condition for all the tenants: they had to support 70 city patients.
In 1887, it was decided to turn the mud baths into an independent institution. As it turned out, this decision was correct. The resort began to develop rapidly. For example, in 1893, 662 people visited it.
In addition to the municipal mud baths, a branch of the Jewish hospital was opened on the Khadzhibey estuary in 1882, and in 1888 a children's sanitary station was opened nearby, which was built on a plot of land donated by Leo Tolstoy.
It was possible to get to the estuary by a"line", the end of which was at the corner of Preobrazhenska and Yelisavetynska (now Universytetska) streets, or by hired crew. In 1883, a steam tram was launched at the resort.
It is known that the Khadzhibey Park in those days was about 12 acres (13 hectares) in size. It was home to chestnuts, oaks, aspen, birch bark, acacias, lilacs, cherries, wild pears, and more.
The mud baths and baths started their work on May 15 and closed on September 1. In 1888 and 1889, Lesya Ukrainka was treated on the shores of the Khadzhibey estuary. During her first visit, the poetess stayed in the central building of the resort. The treatment resulted in a significant improvement in her health.
Postcard from the 1910s from the collection of Andrii Krantov
The following year Lesia came to the estuary twice. This time she lived not far from the park, at the Dacha Dialegmeno, which she called "Vila Paucini" for its huge number of spiders. Lesia Ukrainka wrote about that hot summer: "The heat here is terrible, it can be 30° at 7 p.m. It has never rained since I've been here... You have no idea what a terrible heat it is here: on Monday it was 43°, I saw it myself on the thermometer; so I was laughing when I read your complaints about the heat - and who hasn't had such a temperature under chestnuts? It is said that sailors returning from Africa and even the equator said that it was not as hot there as it is here in Odesa. The tropics have moved to the estuary! Sailors' suits, fans, umbrellas, soda and ice cream are everywhere. Stallholders in shops stand with palm fans. I bought a "soul salvation" fan for 10 k. They say that on Sunday, six thousand people were in the city baths. I disappear in 29° with my baths."
But the writer did not like going to the park very much: "I rarely go to the park from the baths, I don't want to walk a few extra steps, and I'm afraid to walk that way because I saw a black, big viper there, and now I'm afraid... so now I'm afraid to sit in that gazebo, on that semicircular poetic stone, lest Oleh's fate befall him."
An interesting description of the park was published in the Odessanski Novyny (Odesa News) on July 19, 1898: "The first thing that catches your eye upon arrival at the estuary is a large park. It is remarkably beautiful in its plantings and grandiose in size and numerous alleys. Khadzhibey Park is in no way inferior to the city's Oleksandrivskyi Park (now Taras Shevchenko Park - ed.). At the entrance, a large, winding pond with several swans swimming majestically on its surface draws attention. Here, on hot days, summer residents huddle under the shade of broad-leaved branches. There is also a cafeteria for the public and a bandstand for the orchestra. The park looks spectacular in the evening under the light of electricity. At the very entrance, a beautiful wide alley makes an improvised boulevard. Numerous people flock here from all over the large estuary. To the sound of military music, most of the walkers are diligently engaged in ... exterminating sunflowers. Jokes, chatter, laughter, and witticisms can be heard at all intersections. In general, the public is at ease and feels at home. At 10 o'clock, when the orchestra leaves, silence settles on the "boulevard"; summer residents rush home, jostling for space near the tram station..."
The same note also refers to an uninscribed monument on a small hill. According to legend, the only son of the former owner of the park was buried here. The Odessanski chicherone (compiled by I. Avdeenko) of the 1910s reported on "an original monument erected in Khadzhibey Park on a hill with the inscription: "I beg the owner not to violate the memory of my son Fyodor, born on September 22, 1863, d. February 17, 1864. Marfa Chuprynova". This may have been the same burial. It has not survived to this day.
Photo: Andrii Krantov
Before the outbreak of the First World War, it was planned to plant a new park in front of the old one, with an area of 25 acres. In the center of the new park, they were going to build a mud bath for classes 1 and 2 with 150 cabins and a hotel with 100 rooms. But these plans were not to be realized. In the summer of 1914, journalist Petro Pilsky organized a poets' evening in the Khadzhibey Park kursal. E. Bahrytskyi, V. Kataev, and A. Fioletov made their debuts at this evening. According to researcher Olha Yavorska, this event was the starting point in the history of the Odesa literary school of the 1920s.
Artists also paid attention to this area. For example, T.Y. Dvornikov painted pictures with views of the Khadzhibey Park, and in the 1920s A.V. Martynov (reproduced on a postcard). On May 10, 1916, the Russian Tsar Nicholas II came to the Khadzhibey resort (immediately after Kuyalnytskyi). He visited wounded soldiers who were being treated in a hospital in the park.
After the Bolsheviks came to power, the resort did not function for several years. Only in 1923 did its restoration begin after the revolutionary events, and three years later, a movie was already filmed here. Footage of the views of Khadzhibey Park at that time can be seen in the movie Berries of Love (1926). In 1928, the VUCVK Peasant Sanatorium was built on the site of the former "common premises" in the style of functional retrospectivism. The gates and walls of the building were decorated with frescoes on agricultural themes by a group of artists led by one of the founders of Ukrainian monumental art , Mykhailo Lvovych Boichuk. After Boichuk and some of his students were repressed, all the frescoes in the sanatorium were carefully covered over.
The Odesa poet I.I. Pavlov, who was born in the family of the head of the Usatov post office, wrote: "I am an Odessan. I was born in the village of Usatove in Khadzhibey Park on January 13, 1931. In those days, the park was entirely oak - I still remember an oak tree that eight people could barely grab. "
In the fall of 1941, the building of the sanatorium of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee, the mud baths, and part of the park were flooded with water from the estuary after the dam was blown up by retreating Soviet troops. During the Romanian occupation, the dam was restored by Odessans, and a canal was built to connect the estuary to the sea. According to T.F. Haidenko, during the defense of Odesa, a two-story building (it has been preserved) in the park housed a hospital, and during the occupation, a ghost house (Romanian gendarmerie).
Photo: Andrii Krantov
Unfortunately, during the occupation of the city, many old trees in the park were cut down. But already in 1946, professor-resortologist M.S. Bilenkyi noted that more than 2,000 trees and shrubs were planted in Khadzhibey Park. An alley of pyramidal poplars was planted, and 12 years later a new park was laid out nearby. In the same year, the Khadzhibey children's sanatorium was opened in the surviving building to treat children who had suffered from polio. Four years later, it was opened for patients with cerebral palsy.
The old part of the Khadzhibey Park was chosen by the participants of hiking tours, where they conducted training. In 1965, thanks to the efforts of these tourists, an obelisk was erected in memory of the Odesa partisans.
The buildings, damaged by the estuary water, were abandoned for a long time. Then it was decided to demolish them. In 1973, construction began on a new sanatorium complex in their place, which included a 3-story building of a dormitory building with medical and diagnostic rooms and a food unit, a water hospital, and a utility block. The complex was put into operation in 1977. From 1983 to 2003, the Khadzhibey sanatorium was headed by a high-class specialist Valentyn Pruss, who was awarded the title of Honored Doctor of Ukraine for his achievements in treating children.
In 1994, for the first time in Ukraine, he opened a sanatorium department for mothers and children, and the sanatorium acquired the status of the Ukrainian Center for Sanatorium and Resort Rehabilitation of Children with Organic Pathology of the Nervous System. A year later, a surgical department was organized.
This is the history of one of the oldest parks in our city. We can only hope that in the near future it will attract vacationers as much as it did a hundred years ago.
Андрій Крантов