Nikos Kazantzakis published his “Odyssey” in 1938. He regarded it as the most important work in his life. It presents his main literary, philosophic, religious and linguistic ideas. However, Greek readers in general neither accepted this new epic, nor understood its language. Later, Kazantzakis repeated his ideas in his novels which were a success unlike his poem. Only the English translation of the “Odyssey” will be highly appreciated by European and American critics, philologists and poets and will attract many readers only after Kazantzakis’ death. The “Odyssey” is an extremely friendly text for any kind of analysis. One can look for direct literary and textual parallels with Homer, Erotokritos, Dante, James Joyce, ancient and contemporary philosophy, describe mythopoetics or study its unique language. In this contribution we investigate some connections between the “Odyssey” and the Russian culture. There are a lot of common motifs, but more important and interesting are typological similarities with the basic topoi patterns of Russian literature of the 19th century: romantic escape, “Russian traveler”, the “Russian European”, departure as an aspiration for the new birth. Such kind of comparative analysis makes possible to regard the “Odyssey” as a Kazantzakis’ mythmaking project aimed to create the New Greek culture.