I will open a little secret if before we walked around Odessa, today we will walk under it. Yes, yes it is. After all, today my story about the Odessa catacombs.
The catacombs are a huge underground labyrinth near Odessa and its surroundings. The total length of the catocombs is 2500 kilometer, this is the longest underground labyrinth in the world.
How did the quarries come about? At the dawn of the construction of the city, the question became where to get material for the construction in the steppe. And nature came to the rescue. Near Odessa there are huge reserves of "pontine limestone" also known as shell rock or shell rock. It was thanks to this stone in the middle of the 19th century that construction was booming in Odessa. Due to the yellow color of this material, Odessa was named "yellow city".
The extraction of the stone, thanks to its not high hardness, was carried out quickly with the help of saws and by the end of the 19th century began to lead to problems. Due to the emptiness formed, dips began to form. Therefore, a ban was imposed on the extraction of stone within the city, especially in the area of Staroportofrankovskaya Street. After all, about 40% of the old city is located on the catacombs and dips are formed in our tim