Odessa

Odessa, a city with historical connections to ancient Greece, the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Revolution, has been swept up in a monumental phase in the region’s history. The unrest in Crimea and the eastern part of Ukraine erupted explosively in Odessa on when riots broke out there between pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine groups and a government building was set on fire, killing 40 people. Kiev sent an elite national guard unit to re-establish control of the restive city. The Black Sea port is a vital connection between Ukraine and the rest of Europe and the world. If Odessa goes the way of other break-off cities in Ukraine's east, the entire country could be in serious trouble. Ukraine is in grave danger of collapsing and any expansion of the unrest is significant.” With a population of over 1 million, Odessa is third−largest Ukrainian city after Kiev and Kharkiv and a vital shipping and transportation hub, for both commercial and recreational reasons. The city home to key railroad and highway junctions, and is considered a major industrial, cultural, scientific, and resort center. Odessa was the Soviet Union's leading Black Sea port and it remains a vital link to this day, shipping grain, sugar, machinery, coal, petroleum products, cement, metals, and timber. In 2008, Odessa handled over 34.5 million tons of cargo. Meanwhile, some 150,000 tourists visit the city every year. Odessa is important because it in fact is in the southwestern part of Ukraine and it was a place that was perceived as being more stable than east Ukraine because it has a smaller percentage of ethnic Russians, it’s still unclear how much of the insurgency is being directly influenced by Moscow, but any unrest in Ukraine now makes it more difficult for the current government to maintain a united front and try to isolate the areas of uprising in the eastern part. And if Ukraine’s central government loses both Crimea and Odessa, it would essentially become a landlocked nation. Ukraine without any seaports obviously is a much weaker country. And there’s additional worry that instability in Odessa could spread to the “Transnistria” region, an ethnically diverse strip of land between Ukraine and Moldova. Odessa was ripe for being dragged into the same strife facing the eastern part of Ukraine because it has such a diverse population. “Ukraine is in grave danger of collapsing as a country." And it has been historically a very big city with a huge Russian population, Jewish and Ukrainian, so it’s always been a really sort of remarkable mixing bowl. The primary language spoken in Odessa is Russian, and in 2010 most of the people in that region, as well as the eastern sections, voted for former president Viktor Yanukovych,.