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CultureOdessans do not forget their French mayors, who built a modern and beautiful city on the Black Sea
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A memorial plaque to Alexandre-Louis Andrault de Langeron (1763-1831), who was the Governor-General of Novorossiya and the second French mayor of Odessa, will appear on a wall of an historical building of Odessa.
The plaque will be installed at the expense of "raised funds" on house No. 21 on the street that bears his name (Lanzheronkaya). The corresponding order was signed by the mayor Gennady Trukhanov.
On the board there will be the following text (in Ukrainian):
From March 1825 to June 1831, the Governor-General of the region, the mayor of Odessa, Count Langeron Alexander Feodorovich (13.01.1763 - 04.07.1831) lived in this building
The installation of the board was initiated by the director of the Odessa lyceum "Lanzheronovsky", the former director of the Odessa Municipal Department of Education and Science Natalya Savelyeva.
Alexandre de Langeron, also called by Russian historiography: Count Aleksandr Feodorovich Lanzheron, was mayor of Odessa from 1816 to 1822, after the more famous Duc de Richelieu.
Count Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langeron (24 January 1763 – 16 July 1831), born in Paris, was a member of a noble French family. He took part in the American Revolutionary War. A Royalist, Langeron left France at the beginning of the French Revolution and entered Russian service in 1790 as a colonel in the Siberian Grenadier Regiment. He took part in the two Russo-Turkish Wars and to the Napoleonic Wars. He fought at the battle of Austerlitz and, after that, he was sent to Odessa. In 1815, he became governor of Novorossiya.
After a brief return in France, during the Bourbon Restoration, Langeron came back to Odessa as the Military Governor of Kherson and Odessa, During Langeron's tenure, the construction of the Odessa Botanical Gardens and Primorsky Boulevard began. He opened the Richelieu Lyceum for the young elite: only the children of wealthy merchants could enroll. The most far-reaching achievement in Langeron's term was the port of Odessa to be pronounced as a free port (Porto Franco) in 1819, which allowed selling and storing of imported goods with no customs duties. Langeron died during a cholera epidemic in 1831. He was buried in the Assumption Cathedral of Odessa.
