City Boulevard with few strollers
Harbour front railway traffic
Sample of ornate building
Statue of Anton Chechov
Basement of Main Cathedral....all gilded
Matrushka dolls
Potemkin Steps
Fur Cap vendor
A City Square
One of ozens of strip clubs
The Opera House
Municipal Building
Lada with rusted tin over trailer hitch
Telephone in a restaurant toilet
Town Garden Gazebo
Old 'Shopping' Passage
Odessa Citizen
Although Odessa on the Black Sea is touted as a seaside resort due to it's mild climate, today it was all but MILD. Freezing actually, and the couple of street vendors at the top of 162-step famous Potemkin Stairs were doing a brisk business selling Russian style fur caps embroidered with Soviet Hammer and Sickle emblems. A couple of young men carried brown eagles - photo for a fee of a few hryvnia (10 of those for a US dollar).
Odessa is famous and infamous....Jewish Pogroms, Zarist repression, Soviet dictatorships, lavish opera house, luxurious mansions, Catacombs and a host of famous names interlaced with Odessa's history.
Today it boasts about a million inhabitants, who seem to be relatively cosmopolitan in habit and dress. Urban activity centers around Deribasovskaya Street, lined with banks, hotels, exclusive shops, cafes and bistros and an impressive line up of Belle Époque architecture.
The iconic Potemkin Steps, designed by French born F.K. Boffo, all 200 risers, were constructed in 1837. At the bottom the steps are twice as wide as at the top, and seen from the top all the risers blend into one smooth whole. It was made famous through Sergei Eisenstein's classic Epic The Battleship Potemkin. In 1905 Odessa workers mounted an uprising, which was supported by the crew of the Battleship Potemkin. The sailor's mutiny caused the Odessa citizens to show their support by gathering on the steps and descending towards the sailors. They were massacred right there by Zarist troops, and the film shows the blood of the victims spilling down the famous staircase. Today there are only 192 steps left, the other eight succumbed to development of a modern thoroughfare. It still takes some effort clambering up, despite several flat terraces breaking up the long flight. For the faint of heart a little tram runs up and down and one may ride it for 2 hryvnias.
Alexander Pushkin, the famous Russian poet, spent his exile here, after upsetting the Zar with his subversive writings. His strict and intolerant chaperone Count Vorontsov shared the poet's exile by supervising Pushkin's forced employment as a civil servant, but did so in style in his opulent palace at the exclusive part of Primorskaya Blvd.
Other literary personalities, like Gogol, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Gorky and Shevchenko are honoured in the old mansion, now museum, of Prince Dmitri Gagarin.
An Opera house, built in 1884, of stupendous proportions and Louis XVI design, once hosted Caruso and Chaliapin. Unfortunately the ballet performance scheduled for this day (which I hoped to attend) was cancelled, so I missed out on experiencing the interior with ceiling frescos and pomp and circumstance seating and halls.
The old Pasazh, Passage in English, is the last sign of former High Society shopping habits, with over-the-top interiors and small exclusive boutiques, which are now devoted to the sale of souvenirs like Matrushka dolls and mass produced Icons.
I took off on foot, wrapped in every warm item of clothing I had taken on this allegedly balmy Mediterranean Cruise...and still felt cold. I strolled past Ekaterina Square, dedicated to Catherine the Great of Russia, whose statue had survived the Communist Era. Then past the most infamous tourist attraction of Odessa, which is a flourishing sex trade tourism. Strip Joints, men only casinos, more strip joints and bars, and some of the major attractions tottering down the street with long platinum blond wavy manes fluttering in the icy breeze, tight ever so scant clothing defying the cold, and cleavages almost to 'navel base' not showing a single goose pimple. Tough Girls, those Ukrainian beauties, which are advertised in proliferation on every tourist web site in existence.
I got a closer look at two of these spectacular looking ladies when I entered a local bank to convert a grand total of $20 US into Hryvnias. I took all of 30 minutes: serious unsmiling discussion of non English speaking bank personnel, passport, various forms with Cyrillic script, at least half a dozen signatures on more forms and receipts, and then - the Ukrainian cash. Two ladies of above description stood waiting behind me, towering over me in their high heels and keeping their bare boobs lightly covered with lond hair. Both of them were ready to invest or exchange or deposit their crisp, never folded before, $100 US dollar notes....some visitors must have felt an early morning need to keep warm...
Anyway, the newly acquired cash bought me entry to a cafe, which could have featured in a Tolstoy novel, and access to free WiFi - almost universal in Odessa. A hot chocolate (yummy) and a Russia sized croissant with home made confiture set me back a couple of Hryvnias, with enough left over for a later warm up coffee and a taster sized bottle of local Vodka....which is cheaper than bottled water.
One of the most impressive sights was not mentioned in any brochure, the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in the town's central park. I entered and was immediately herded 'downstairs' by a Russian lady. Thinking that she wanted to point me to a toilet (tourists are always in search of facilities) I followed her invitation, made in perfect Russki, of which I know nothing but Da and Njet (Yes and No). To my surprise, instead of public facilities, I entered a veritable golden treasure in the lower level of the Cathedral. Wall to wall gold and icons, thrones and candlesticks, massive candelabras and magnificent Greek Orthodox wall paintings of Saints and Patriarchs, and the usual gold-covered and intricately carved wooden partition between priests and worshippers. The holy of holies, at present being polished to blinding gleam by an army of church workers armed with ladders and polishing rags, to get the sanctorum ready for Orthodox Easter.
After Constanta's depressing post communist aspect, Odessa was a breath of fresh air, more correctly - icy air. However, the city seems to be thriving. Apart from the obligatory Lada wrecks smoking and clattering down the streets, there is definitely a god number of brand new BMWs and Mercedes around. Who knows, how and where these riches originate, and how much of it percolates through to the everyday citizen...there are enough people of less than ample means in evidence. But, one can purchase anything from anywhere in the world in this town - and more. Imports are pricey, but everyday necessities - like Vodka - are dirt cheap. Even the REAL caviar is affordable, however, in the spirit of 'Save the Sturgeon' I did not purchase a gram.
Definitely a city that seems to have shaken off the impact of it's bloody and violent past, and is heading onward to a better future with a little more happiness for Ukrainian people.
