Pop culture, Brezhnev, the Black Market, and the new economic boom.

Due to the popularity of Mark Bernes and Odessa's new Hero City status, after the second world war, it became a major tourist destination for Communist officials and their families.

However, in the era of Brezhnev, the city welcomed new vacationers, as well as made a new home for criminals that had nothing to do with Benya Krik's Moldavanka.  Krushchev's reforms tanked the economy, and under Brezhnev, the black market created a special privileged class of people who could afford to buy blue jeans and consumer goods.  And they came in through that same port.

Sailors were given their wages to spend when they made port around the world, and when they returned to Odessa they could sell their western goods at top dollar.  This was the beginning of Odessa being a black market hub, a claim to fame that would only get worse after the fall of the USSR.

Tourism poster, 1910-1960's (Flickr)