In 1786, Potemkin designed and began to build a new capital for this southern empire. The site he chose was on a bend in the Dnieper at a point where the river was almost a mile wide. He named it Ekaterinoslav (Catherine’s Glory). He planned a cathedral, a university, law courts, a musical conservatory, public parks and gardens, and twelve factories for making silks and wool. In 1789, he founded Nikolaev, another seaport and shipyard twenty miles upriver from Kherson. And once the Turkish war was over, Potemkin chose the site and made plans to build the city that is now Odessa; he died before
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