Situated at the edge of a beautiful lake, in a natural arena at the foot of the Handlebar range, Odessa is the capital of the province of Olympia. Drawing on the gold, silver and other valuable metals mined in the Handlebars, Odessa has developed important specialised industries, including precision engineering and jewellery. The city is also the site of a number of spas that were developed from Roman times on the basis of mineral springs that rose from the foothills of the Handlebar mountains. In the eighteenth century, Odessa was therefore the Bath or Buxton of Dynamo, sharing with those cities an elegant neo-classical architectural style that was adapted to street-planning, often in the form of circuses, crescents as well as to the principal municipal buildings and fashionable centres of entertainment such as the Assembly Rooms, the Opera and the Theatre. The honey-coloured local stone was widely used and indeed, to this day, predominates as a building material in the centre of the city, though some major recent architectural projects provide a contrast with their gleaming white ceramic façades. The most famous of these is the Odessa Opera House: situated at the edge of the lake, the four majestic sail-like motifs that decorate its skyline, resemble the profile of traditional Olympian watercraft.

Odessa is also the home of one of Dynamo’s most famous universities, George Hagel College (named in the honour of the province’s greatest philosopher), situated in a former 18^th-century mansion in a splendid setting just outside the city. Its government and industry funding make it one of the country’s leading research institutions, with many important specialised high-tech industrial developments situated around it. The city is also home to the country’s leading sports college, Ashford Forum, which plays an important role in making the country one of the leaders in athletics (track and field) in the European community. Ash-keys are the province’s symbol and figure prominently in the College’s badge.