Few staircases have been studied as closely as this one. Cut into the bluff that separates Odesa's historic centre from its working harbour, the flight was designed as a piece of theatre: seen from below it appears as an unbroken ascent of stone, while from the top the landings disappear and the eye falls straight to the port. The taper of the steps, narrower at the summit than at the base, exaggerates the perspective in both directions — a deliberate optical device, and the reason photographers have never stopped returning. Its second life belongs to cinema. Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin turned the staircase into one of the most quoted sequences in film history, and the name it now carries in everyday use comes from that film rather than from its builders. The programme covers the structure in 4K from ground level, from the flanking colonnade and from the air, follows the daily traffic of people who simply use it as a route to the sea, and sets it within the classical seafront of the city it serves.
