Within Odessa located big memorial open air museum, dedicated to Second World War. Most of tourists don’t know about it, since the memorial placed far away from old town. But it is very popular among locals, because of big park zone for walk and rest away of city noise. Mainly mothers with children walking here. You can buy a coffee, rest in shade of trees, as well as visit a small museum dedicated to the defense of Odessa WW2.
Anti aircraft rocket system
How Odessa WW2 complex appeared
Since Odessa was a strategic city and port for Soviet Union, its defense was extremely important. Special coastal artillery batteries were created along coastline, which prevented enemy fleet from attacking the city. This memorial is not accidentally located on this place. Here was one of such shore battery that protected Odessa. WW2 memorial still has a huge underground base that hid Red Army soldiers. But unfortunately, it is not yet available for visiting. However, it is still a great place to visit in Odessa.
The biggest cannon of battery
What to see on memorial
Odessa WW2 memorial is kind of city sight with exibition of soviet military enginery, that used during the war. You can see here legendary soviet tank T-34 – most successful tank of the Soviet Union. Also here stand many samples of artillery, howitzers, armored train and legendary rocket launcher – Katyusha. Moreover, here stands secret “tank” produced in Odessa specially for defending our city. Each kind of enginery has it’s own history on a battle fields of Second World War.
The most famous soviet tank T-34
Soviet military enginery exhibition
By the beginning of WW2, Odessa had a significant navil fleet. Navy participated in the defense of city against Nazis on a par with regular infantry. Therefore, as artifacts among the rest of represented enginery, here are ship armament, submarine and warship. There is also a soviet warplane of SWW, anti-aircraft installations and rocket installations against enemy air forces.
Submarine “Malutka” (The Baby)
For those who are fond of military history and history of Second World War, it is necessary to include this in tour to Odessa on a par with other places, which you are going to visit.
Public transport that going to memorial
To reach WW2 memorial is easy using few routes of city buses. All of them have final stop there, so there is no chance to miss the place. See most useful buses for a travel to and check detailed scheme of city bus routes – as of 2019 year.
- №185 – this routes starts from Cathedral Square in old city and takes around 1.2 hours.
- №175 – the bus has same start station as 185 – Cathedral Square and little bit different route, but same long time of travel.
- №127 – take the bus is easy near train station, from where time of route takes only 50 minutes. Also bus going near old Orthodox monastery, in case you want to visit another one point of interest.