Odessa has a literary tradition wildly disproportionate to its size. Pushkin was exiled here and wrote some of his finest verse; Isaac Babel was born here and set his Odessa Tales in the gangster-haunted Moldavanka district; Ilf and Petrov — the authors of The Golden Calf — met here; Anna Akhmatova lived here briefly. The Literary Museum, housed in an 18th-century palazzo on Lanzheronovska Street, documents this tradition through manuscripts, portraits, and personal effects.
The building itself is reason enough to visit: one of Odessa's best-preserved neoclassical interiors, with high ceilings, formal rooms, and a garden. The museum takes the city's literary self-regard seriously, which is either endearing or excessive depending on your tolerance for civic pride.