One more Odessite and city guests' favorite transport type is the mini funicular railway that runs beside Potemkin Staircase in Primorskyy Boulevard.
There has been an Odessa funicular for more than 100 years. Initially, a "lifting machine", one of the first in the Russian Empire, was built in 1902. Two cars were ordered from Paris with the capacity of 35 people each, in order to connect the upper part of the city and port. They operated according to a pendulum scheme: one car going down assisted the other one to go up. So, they were pulling each other for 67 years stopping for wars and postwar devastation - in 1919 - 1926, and in 1941 - 1947. It was decided to replace the dilapidated funicular with the fundamentally new escalator which was done in 1970. However, the inability to operate the installation in a proper way and to solve problems with spare parts led to closing half the escalator - fortunately the one going down. 
Although, as it was written by Leonid Utesov, legendary Odessa artist and jazzman, in the book Thank you, heart, "Almost no one is going downwards in it. Why? Walking down the stairs is a mere pleasure." Alas, going up in the escalator for 3 kopecks became also impossible: the escalator was completely stopped in 1997. And in 2005, on the Birthday of the City, September 2, a new modern funicular was opened.
Two cabins, each for 10 people, leisurely and slowly move up and down beside the stairs - and, what's more, the short journey is free, and saves tiring out your legs on a walk up the more than 100 stairs. . .