Before the construction of a port with a city, the region was the site of a number of unorganized farmsteads and hamlets (khutir) that were collectively known as Buhovi khutory (Ukrainian: Бугові Хутори) that were located on agricultural lots of a local landowner, Andriy Buhovyi.

After the establishment of the Soviet regime and the "nationalization" and collectivization of the area, in 1927 the settlement was renamed into Illichivskyi Khutir in honour of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

[citation needed] In 1952 a port was established, and its surrounding territory was urbanized and converted into a city of Illichivsk (langx | ru | Ильичёвск).

The city was designed to become a new home for the Black Sea Shipping Company (then the largest operator of passenger and commercial vessels in the world).

[citation needed] On 15 May 2015 President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a bill into law which began a six-months period for the removal of communist monuments and the mandatory renaming of settlements with names related to Communism.

The Bulgarians built break of gauge apparatus at Varna which made it possible to change bogies of 24 freight cars in one hour thirty minutes.