Lanzeron. Outstanding Residents of Odessa City

Alexander Langeron was born in Paris in 1763.

In 1790 he enlisted in the Russian army. Langeron commanded the second column of the Austro-Russian army in the battle of Austerlitz, and disgraced after the lost battle, he was sent to Odessa. That time Odessa was the most backward settlement in Russia

A friend of the Richelieu, a fellow Frenchman, Alexander Langeron, took office as governor general of New Russia (or Ukraine) and as city chief of Odessa on January 1, 1816. Exports continued to grow under his rule, to 40 million rubles in 1817. Unlike his friend and predecessor Richelieu, Langeron was little suited to be sole administrator of the huge domain of New Russia. Within three years, he petitioned the king of Russia to reduce his duties. In 1820, he was relieved of his position as City Chief. It was given to a member of the Commercial Court, N. Ia. Tregubov, who retained the post for two years. The two positions of governor general and City Chief were never again entrusted to the same person.

King Alexander I visited Odessa for the first time in 1818; when Langeron was governor general. Alexander was charmed by the city his grandmother had called to life on the Black Sea shore. As a token of his satisfaction he gave the city forty thousand rubles for the improvement of the quarantine and for the construction of an aqueduct. He ordered the Black Sea fleet to carry paving stone from the Crimea to Odessa.

Langeron opened the Richelieu institute. The institute was only for the elite, only the children of merchants and Greek-immigrants could enroll. During Langeron's tenure, the construction of the Odessa Botanical Gardens and Primorsky Boulevard began.

The most far reaching legislation in Langeron's term was that the port of Odessa was pronounced a history free port in 1819, a port that allowed the selling and storing of imported goods with no customs duties.

Langeron was not happy in his office. His expenses were double his salary. Apart from the financial drain of the office, many other burdens weighed upon him. He had to travel through New Russia twice a year to inspect his territory; the plague visited the port twice during his regime; and he quarreled continuously with the bureaucracy in St. Petersburg.

Often weighing resignation, he at last gave up the office in the summer of 1822. After retirement, he returned briefly to France and then was called back by Nicholas I to sit on the high court that tried the Decembrists. He died of cholera in 1831 at age sixty-eight in St. Petersburg. His remains were returned to Odessa and laid to rest in the Catholic Cathedral on Ekaterininskaya Street.

One of Odessa central located beaches are named after Duke Lanzeron.