High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Odessa Soviet Republic (OSR) (Ukrainian: ; Russian: ) was a short-lived Soviet republic formed January 31 [O.S. January 18] 1918 out of parts the Kherson and Bessarabia Governorates of the former Russian Empire. The republic was proclaimed right before the Bolshevik forces pushed the Ukrainian government out of Kiev and Sfatul rii proclaimed the independence of the Moldavian Democratic Republic. The Odessa's governing body was the Council of People's Commissars headed by Vladimir Yudovsky and formed by the Bolsheviks, Anarchists and Social Revolutionaries. The government proclaimed Odessa a free city, and pledged allegiance to the Bolshevik government in Petrograd, not Kiev.