the life of Odessa

from Sunday's radio program,
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/27/134055091/dreams-death-and-jewish-gangsters-in-odessa
[opening lines, below]

When Mark Twain stepped ashore in the Black Sea port city of Odessa in the summer of 1867, he found a cosmopolitan crossroads teeming with people from all over the Russian Empire and beyond.

The city's melting-pot nature reminded Twain of home. "Look up the street, or down the street, this way or that way," he wrote. "We saw only America."

Odessa was a young city when Twain arrived. Founded in 1794 by Catherine the Great, it was only a few years younger than Washington, D.C., but already had a rich history. Author Charles King has written a new book about that history, Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams.