Potemkin Steps, Odessa

Tourists looking down the famous Odessa landmark, the Potemkin Steps, toward the port. These 192 steps featured in Sergei Eisenstein's film about the Battleship Potemkin, an incident from the 1905 Revolution. Sailors on this battleship mutinied and sailed into Odessa's harbour, where huge crowds gathered at the port to greet them.

It all ended badly when Czarist troops killed the leader of the revolt and about 2,000 other people, but the sailors' mutiny encouraged Bolshevik leaders because it showed that the military might turn against the state, as many did later in the 1917 October Revolution.

Today you can still walk up or down these stairs, or if you're lazy take a free funicular. Primorsky Boulevard at the top of the stairs is a nice place to walk, with Black Sea views and plentiful trees. In the evenings it is a good place to people watch, as locals mostly replace tourists out enjoying the weather.