The Odessa catacombs are the surprizing world of the ancient underground elaboration of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, located under Odessa and its suburbs. The Odessa catacombs are the grandiose systems of the underground quarries, partly connected one with another by the scale and surprizing labyrinth.
The Odessa catacombs has a legendary fame and world glory due to the absolutely fantastic sizes - the general extent of the elaboration is estimated in 2500 kilometres, that leaves the catacombs of such world cities as Paris (500 kilometres) and Rome (300 kilometres) far behind.
The Odesa catacombs can tell not only about the Odessa history, but also about the distant geological past of the Odessa region. The greatest value of the Odessa catacomb is in the field of the paleontology, because the natural caves (by age more than 3 million years), opened by the catacombs, keep the enormous amount of the bones of fossil animals.
Considerable part of the image of the Odessa catacombs is related with the great role that they played in the World War II, being refuge of the partisans. In the Soviet times the Museum of a partisan glory, sanctified to the heroic past (the Nerubaiskoie settlement) attracted about 1 million of visitors in a year.