The museum «Filiki Eteria» («Society of Friends» — from the Greek language) has been functioning in Odessa since 1979, first as a department of the historical and local history museum of the city.
In September 1994, during the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the city, the Branch of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture (Center in Athens) was inaugurated in Odessa in the buildings on Red Lane No. 16-20. These buildings were given to the Branch by the City Hall on favorable terms, and since then the museum «Filiki Eteria» has been working here. This is its historical site. In the past these buildings belonged to the Greeks and it was here in 1814 that a secret revolutionary and patriotic organization «Filiki Eteria» was established, which prepared the Greeks for the struggle for independence and forever linked the history of Odessa with the history of national and state revival of Greece.
The Museum was established by the Hellenic Foundation for Culture in cooperation with the Odessa Museum of History and Local Lore, which provided a number of exhibits from the history of «Filiki Eteria», supplemented by exact copies of exhibits from museums in Greece, especially from the Ethnological and Historical Societies of Greece.
The museum exposition is presented in 3 thematic sections: the first one reveals the activities of the Greek colony in Odessa in the pre-revolutionary period, the second and the third — the history of the establishment, administrative, economic structure and activities of «Filiki Eteria» and its members before and during the Greek Revolution.
Recently, a new ethnographic museum hall has been opened with real household items that depict a picture of the house of G. I. Marazli in the first half of the XIX century.
Every year the museum «Filiki Eteria» is visited free of charge by thousands of Odessa citizens and guests of the city, foreign tourists. Excursions and lectures, thematic conferences and lessons for schoolchildren and university students of the city are often organized.
Work on the development and replenishment of the museum’s exposition continues.