Odessa Dreams

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Almost exactly two months ago, we moved here, to Odessa, a city in the south of Ukraine on the Black Sea.

It's quite a small city, although the residential areas sprawl. Our school provided us with an apartment in an old courtyard near the centre. You can see our street on the Lonely Planet map of Odessa! We've never lived so close to the 'action' before. No longer do we have to deal with taxis home from the pub at night, trying to communicate our address to the driver and then watch like a hawk to check that he isn't driving us all around the houses (which means not falling asleep in the back) and then check he gives us the right change- we can now stagger back in 15 minutes! The centre is quite touristy already, and it's only April. The main street, Deribaskavaya, is half pedestrianised. People stroll up and down it enjoying pony rides and live music from a multitude of buskers. There's a European style market - you know, the type we have everywhere at Christmas selling mulled wine, sausages and gifts - but this one is there all year. Apparently in a couple of weeks, all the restaurants and bars will put seating outside so we can sit enjoying a beer and watch the world go by. Some places have optimistically already got seats out but they have to provide blankets because its still actually too cold.

From Deribaskavaya it's a short walk to some of Odessa's attractions. Odessa is quite a young city by European standards as it was founded in 1794 by the Russian queen, Katherine the Great, as a port, and a big statue of her looks over the city in one of the many squares. Near her are the Potemkin steps. Made famous by the movie Battleship Potemkin (can't say I've seen it - or heard of it until we moved here) they are allegedly an optical illusion- all treads looking down and all rises looking up ....or something. To be honest, and I hope I don't upset any Odessans by saying this,....it's just a big staircase. You can walk up it and down it. That's about it.

The opera house is much more spectacular. In fact, it's said to be one of the best opera houses in the world. It's beautiful from the outside, but we have yet to go in. Neither of us has ever been to an opera before, but this seems like the place to start. We have been reassured by an Odessan that it's usually all in Italian anyway, so none of the audience will understand it, we won't be alone.

Another sight more interesting than the steps is Mother-in-Law Bridge. Apparently some rich guy had a palace on one side of the river, but really liked his mother-in-law's pancakes, which she made in her house at the other side of the river. So, like you do when you want to eat as many pancakes as possible, he built a bridge over the river between the two houses. Different kind of mother in law joke isn't it?

Actually, I've just read in the Lonely Planet that another story is that he built the bridge so his mother-in-law had no reason to stay the night with him......

......So anyway, on this bridge, couples who are getting married come and attach locks. There are thousands on them, many elaborately decorated or engraved with their names and the date of the marriage. When the couple has a baby, sometimes they attach a little lock to their original lock. This apparently protects their marriage. It happens in Italy too I hear. There are so many locks on this bridge that sometimes the authorities have to cut some off so the bridge doesn't fall down. It does wobble in quite a scary way. Perhaps to prevent a large scale bridge collapse, a mobile phone company had erected a big metal heart at one side of the bridge for people to attach their locks to, instead of using the middle of the bridge.

Cats and dogs

Odessans have a really lovely attitude to stray animals. The streets are full of them, but people feed them. There is a cat living outside almost every convenience store, and people go in, do their shopping and buy a packet of cat food or some sardines and feed the cat on the way out. I have not seen such fat cats anywhere, especially strays. There are two white kittens that live on a grate outside a building on our street and someone has put out a saucer for them where people put food. It's lovely, especially after living in Thailand which was full of packs of skinny, mangy stray dogs, and Vietnam where they ate people's pets, so strays had no chance.

Hang up your coat

Another interesting traits of Odessans - and this might be all of Ukraine, but I've only been here so far - is the habit of hanging up your coat. Every bar and restaurant had a cloakroom or coat rack and you are expected to hang up your coat before you sit down. This even happens in the grungiest bars. It's frowned upon to just hang your coat over the back of your chair, or put it on a chair near you. We went to one restaurant that has a sign saying if you don't hang up your coat, they won't serve you. Extreme.

Living in interesting times.

I can't really write a blog on our life in Odessa without mentioning the 'troubles'. The protests or 'Maidan' in Kiev were going on when we decided to move here. We were in Bangkok during one of the many protests (you can read about that here) and we are aware that these types of things can go on for weeks/months/years and while it looks bad on TV, on the ground life continues as normal. It's definitely the case here. Since we arrived, the Government has been overthrown and the President sent into exile, Crimea has had a referendum and decided to join Russian, an action which has not been accepted by the international community, and Russian troops are apparently amassing on the border. Never had Ukraine been on the news so much as since we got here.

We are not political people and we also don't think its our place as expats, particularly ones who have just arrived, to take sides or comment on the rights and wrongs. To an outsider, it looks like both are in the wrong at times, as seems to happen in politics all over the world. It's not at all as simple as it is made to look on the news. Odessa is one of the many cities in Ukraine that speaks Russian. Signs are in Russian and Russian is the language most people use to communicate day-to-day. A Ukrainian couple we met said that while they know Ukrainian, they don't find it easy to communicate in it. However, although Russian is the official language, there are a lot of pro-Ukrainians here. It's not as simple as Russian speakers v.s. Ukrainian speakers. And whether or not some of the interim government have Nazi views, the pro Ukrainians are not Nazis. They get upset when suddenly being nationalistic and wanting an independent country now means that they are Nazis. Odessa is incredibly cosmopolitan. Our classes have Vietnamese, Chinese, Koreans, Greeks, Albanians, Syrians, Turks, Italians and a multitude of other ethnic groups, some who were born elsewhere and some whose parents or grandparents moved here. It's hard to believe that such a diverse group of people could believe that Ukraine should be just for Ukrainians. As I said there are a lot of pro Russians here too. They believe that life was better when they were in the USSR and I'm sure many would agree that infrastructure like education and healthcare was better then. People we have met lived here when the USSR collapsed, and they talk about how there were suddenly no jobs, how once prestigious universities have become poor quality and corrupt and how you shouldn't go to a doctor trained since the USSR collapsed because they may have bought their medical degree. So you can see how some feel they would be better with Russia.

As I said, we're not here to take sides. It's an interesting time to live here, that's for sure. Luckily recently Ukraine has been out of the news. When it was on, family and friends were worried. It was hard to reassure them that while what they could see was snipers and tanks and fighting, what we could see was old women selling pickled vegetables, children playing and life going on as normal. One Friday evening colleagues were getting texts from parents pleading them to come home while we were all sat in a Mexican restaurant eating fajitas and watching people salsa dance. Of course, the media sell stories by showing the worst of any situation. Photos of fat stray cats and videos of men playing the saxophone in the street doesn't really illustrate a story about a political crisis but it would sometimes have been more realistic.

Here in Odessa there are demonstrations every Sunday. Both sides parade around the city with flags and banners, but mostly this is totally peaceful. It's usually families with kids and babies in buggies, rather than the thugs in balaclavas and baseball bats that get their photos on the News. That's not to say that we are being complacent. We follow the UK Foreign and Commonwealth office on Twitter and Facebook and they send advice and updates. We avoid the demonstrations, peaceful or not. And if we see them ahead, we go in another direction.

As a contrast to what you may have seen on the news, here is a video of one 'protest' that happened a couple of weeks ago in our local market.

The new government elections are on 25th May. We are watching......

...Meanwhile we're off to buy some pickled cucumbers and to stroke a fat, stray cat.





For more information on Odessa and teaching in Odessa at LSE, check out our other blog What Kate and Kris Did.

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Photos

Greek style colonnade
Part of Vorontsov palace

The house with one wall
See, from this side it looks like it's just one wall!

Potemkin steps
From the bottom

Atlas statue
On a random building

Statue on Deribasovskaya
This is a poet - Leonid Utesov who I've never heard of but was born in Odessa. I don't know why he had a shiny nose.

One of the oldest streets in Odessa
Unfortunately now derilict

Vereniki
Like Chinese dumplings

Saldo - salted lard
Not tried this yet....

Comments

[Maisondubonheur]

Enjoy!
Happy that you are enjoying your new home, I had a great time back in the Summer of 2013 in Odessa. And for info, it's not only Opera...it's Ballet too...no need to speak anything to enjoy this...don't wait...that place is just amazing. And don't over indulge on the pelmenis and borshes...I did!

[Rat on the Road]

Food
There is some amazing food here that is terrible for the waistline. But luckily they have some good salad too.

[denidax]

What a time to move to Ucraine!
And what a difference it must be from living in Asia

[Dancing Dave]

Hang up your coat
What an interesting time to be in Odessa. Hope your time there is rewarding and safe.

[Sheila Walsh]

You captured Odessa well
Hi, I was assigned to Odessa for 6 weeks for the 2007 election. I loved it. I was there when President Victor... (senior moment).. came and opened the Opera House that had been closed for about 20 years for renovations. The operas are often in the afternoons and very cheap. When I went the House Manager gave me a private tour, pointing out interesting features of the decor. Thanks for bringing me back to Odessa. I'm sure you often lunch in the Athena shopping centre buffet. That place was built by the Greek government. It's the Jewish diaspora, who were driven out of Odessa by the Nazis, who are paying for most of the refurbishments in Odessa. Cheers, Sheila

[The Travel Camel]

Safety in Odessa
I visited Odessa in September last year, and it holds many fond memories - a pretty cosmopolitan city with great food! Entirely agree on the perception of a destination given by the media being different from the reality on the ground. I always tell others to rely on reports from people living or travelling in a place and not to rely on the media for such information. Of course, that is easy to say, but more difficult for such advice to be believed! I would return to Odessa or Kiev (where I also visited last year) without any hesitation at present, one just needs to use common sense wherever they are in the world.