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Essence, Odessa
Author: Anothertravelguide.com
It's high time we gave up our stereotypes. Do not believe the travel guides going out of their way to convince you that Paris is the City of Love: the true Citadel of Love is actually Odessa. Compared to Odessa, the amorous Paris seems like a clumsy beginner just initiated to the art of love. If you find it hard to believe, do visit the city on a summer Saturday: the whole of Odessa seems like a huge wedding celebration with brides in white crinoline dresses, grooms in shiny suits and their entourage trailing behind almost on every corner of every street - not to mention in the numerous parks and squares of the city. You would be hard pressed to find a rose bed without a newlywed couple posing for a photograph - with white doves, grey pigeons or simply with a wedding bouquet. There must be as many of them in the Opera Square - also home to the city's Central Registry Office - as there are pigeons. According to a waiter of a nearby cafe, there is nothing out of the ordinary about that - as recently as last Saturday, a grand total of 22 brides posed for pictures, although he says he has lost count. The countless park and street benches provide haven for hundreds of loved-up embracing couples locked in endless kisses, not giving a damn about anyone else. The Odessa beach is likewise a valley of love, not to mention the dunes or acacia-shadowed little meadows. In any case, a declining birth rate is obviously not a problem in Odessa and neither is lack of joie de vivre. The bogey of financial crisis also does not seem to be scaring anyone in the city; it is said to have been felt at first - today everyone seems to have settled down and is getting on with their life. Cafes are busy again; admittedly, some are said to have closed down - which only makes one wonder how many there had been to begin with.
Odessa draws you in instantly. Perhaps the greatest charm of the city lies in its seeming lack of a feel of a specific geographic location. Odessa is a myth of a city - a self-sufficient place in itself. The loveliest thing about it must be this chance of experiencing and exploring all of these different Odessas. As you roam the plane-tree and acacia lined Odessa boulevards, it almost feels as if you were in Paris; the sight of the former opulence of the Gogol Street buildings gradually and irreversibly succumbing to the ravages of time, on the other hand, brings Havana to mind. An open-work balcony of a 19th-century building seems literally just a moment away from falling apart; next to it, another one is propped up with massive wooden beams and the owner obviously feels safe enough to use it for drying her laundry. And then there are moments when you catch a certain St Petersburg vibe as you admire the painstakingly renovated pastel-colour buildings and wander into their yards, each a vividly acted out study. The two cities are often compared - from the times of the Russian Empire when St Petersburg and Odessa were thought of as the most European among its cities, both living an independent life of their own; if St Petersburg was the Empire's northern window to Europe, Odessa was entrusted a similar mission in the south.
At just over 215, Odessa is a young city; it was founded in 1794 by a special decree of Catherine the Great. Like St Petersburg, Odessa was not created spontaneously; it was built according a strict plan - which explains the exact geometry of the city. The streets are either parallel or perpendicular - no graphic liberties have been tolerated; from bird's eye view Odessa is said to be reminiscent of a chess board. There are, however, significant differences: as a city that's located much farther to the south, Odessa is greener and sunnier than St Petersburg. Like St Peterburgians, Odessites are also reluctant to identify themselves as persons of any particular nationality (according to the official statistics, three of the best-represented ethnic groups are Jews, Ukrainians and Russians); instead, they tend to declare simply: I'm from Odessa. Odessites even speak their own language, as legendary and surrounded by myths as the city itself. Each conversation between two Odessites is a linguistic ping-pong in which one of the involved persons is always trying to have some fun at the other's expense - in a not too subtle yet good-natured manner. The proper response is getting back with an even juicier one-liner, never taking offence.
If there is one thing Odessa does not lack, it's scope and ambition; and it shows - even in the street names: there is a Greek Square (Grecheskaya Ploschad), a French (Frantsuzskiy) Boulevard, an Arcadia, etc. Odessa even has an equivalent of the Eiffel Tower - the Potemkin Stairs.
Odessa is a city that is celebrating life in all its magnificence. To quote a guidebook to the Ukrainian „gem of the Black Sea": Odessites choose the beach over demonstrations. If Pedro Almodóvar, the great chronicler of the life-stories of all sorts of confused off-the-wall weirdoes, had not already picked Madrid as his favourite location, it could have easily been Odessa. In fact, a walk in Odessa is always an episode of a genuine living cinema: you would be hard-pressed to come up with another place boasting such a concentration of larger-than-life characters. Besides, the very geography of the city seems to have been made for people-watching: every couple of dozen of metres there is another bench - ideal for resting your feet, contemplating the sea, rose bushes in bloom, passers-by or simply reading a book. In a way, the countless benches are an Odessa trademark - a luxury few cities would afford in such a concentration. The Odessa benches are a bit like a small stage: people play chess, meet their lovers, prepare for exams, lull their babies to sleep; the local gossips sit down to dish the latest dirt and a couple of middle-aged childhood buddies catch up with each other over a beer.
As the city was planned, all four of its elements were scrupulously taken into account: earth, sea, wind and sunlight. Like Rome, the Old Town of Odessa was built of sandstone taken from the depths of the earth; the resulting underground passages and labyrinths were transformed into the legendary Odessa catacombs, one of the largest in the world.
Funny thing, though - no matter what is the destination of your route, you are likely to end up in Deribasovskaya Street - the heart of the city, its main promenade. Bars, cafes, a wiener stall - sometimes it almost seems as if the life of the whole city were concentrated in a single street. In early summer, the air is filled with the sweet fragrance of lime-blossoms; the lime-trees have replaced most of the legendary Odessa acacias, the symbol of the city: in the 1960s, a big shot from the local political elite ordered them destroyed.
One one side, Deribasovskaya is flanked by a park featuring a lone chair (a reference to the incredibly popular Twelve Chairs novel by Ilf and Petrov; a few steps away - the square named after its protagonist Ostap Bender and the bronze bench with the seated figure of one of the most legendary of its denizens, the actor and singer Leonid Utyosov; tourists and Odessites alike love to have their pictures taken by his side. Don't miss the 19th-century shopping gallery on the other side of the street - an opulent building with a glass roof, adorned with baroque-style sculptures like a cream cake. A nasty crack seems to have slashed one of its walls into two; the decorative portals appear to be dangerously crumbling - they look as if they could fall apart any moment now. The ground-floor shops are selling literally everything but the kitchen sink; the kitschy gaudiness is contrasting sharply with the pompous magnificence of history. There are moments when Odessa seems reminiscent of the unmade-up face of a woman who has been around the block a few times; at other times, the city is a spruced-up young girl wearing high heel sandals: all giggly and exciting, she is rushing to a rendezvous in this city where lovebirds outnumber pigeons. Both are genuine!
Keywords: essence, essences, Odessa
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Una Meistere and Andrejs Žagars