The exhibition features draft blueprints by the museum’s architects Bernard Tschumi and Michalis Fotiadis, external views of the building and the surrounding area, photos of the archaeological finds unearthed in the course of construction as well as photos of the interior of the museum and its displays. The exhibition, organised in collaboration with the Acropolis Museum, will run through April 28.

The Odessa branch of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture (HFC), in collaboration with Greece’s General Consulate, organized on March 25 a presentation of a book, researched and written by authors Sergey G. Reshetov and Larissa V. Izik, dedicated to Gregorios Maraslis. The book Gregorios Gregoriou Maraslis: Honour above Honours is a comprehensive approach to Maraslis’s multifaceted personality, his tenure as mayor of Odessa, in the 19th century as well as his charitable work, in Southern Russia, Corfu, Athens, Constantinople, and Filippoupoli. The event was held at Odessa’s Literature Museum.

Gregorios Maraslis was born in Odessa in 1831, his parents hailing from Filippoupoli, in today’s Bulgaria. He studied in Paris and then returned to Russia and served in the imperial civil service. In 1878 he was elected mayor of Odessa and served for 27 years. Although he was a very wealthy munificent Greek landowner, Maraslis did not confine himself to increasing his personal fortune but pioneered in active social engagement and devoted his life to the enhancement and prosperity of Odessa: theatres and streets, parks and infirmaries, a microbiological laboratory, libraries and art galleries, churches and schools, affordable restaurants, museums, subsidies to publications and large donations to the benefit of the Odessa Greek community.