Actually I just googled it out of interest and the top links for "Little Odessa" ("Маленькая Одесса") point to the movie with that name (http://www.imdb.com/tit

Actually I just googled it out of interest and the top links for "Little Odessa" ("Маленькая Одесса") point to the movie with that name (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110365/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110365/). Maybe that's how the nickname became widespread?