A WEEKEND IN ODESSA

October 18-22, 2001

 

I went to Odessa for the weekend to meet the team for the U.S. Department of State which is evaluating the English Language Fellowship program.  Rather than write a full journal-style travelogue (since I have too many of those on my Web page already), I’ll point out some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the trip.

 

THE SIGHTS:

 

  • Opera and Ballet House—there are rumors that this is the most beautiful opera house in Ukraine and maybe in all of Europe.  I think those rumors are absolutely true. The outside is under remont (renovation), but inside there’s lots of what looks like white and goldleaf decorations.  Even the curtain is beautiful.  It’s incredibly inexpensive as well—my seat six rows from the stage cost 20 gryvnias (4 dollars).  We saw a very moving rendition of “Carmen” performed by the ballet company there.
  • The City Administration Building—If you turn left from the exit of the Opera house and go through the little park, you should come out to a white building with several pillars with a clock on it. The clock chimes every half hour between 7 a.m. and Midnight. If you are not sure how to get there, follow the bridal parties. (It’s a Ukrainian tradition after a wedding to travel around the city to the major tourist sights). 
  • The Potemkin Steps—A man named Potemkin made a movie about the 1917 Revolution that contains a very famous scene at the end: a baby carriage rolling down a long set of steps in the aftermath of a massacre.  The staircase where that was filmed is in Odessa, walking distance from the city administration building (turn your back to the administration building and walk down the road in front of you; the steps will be on your right).
  • The Odessa Sea Port—If you walk down the Potemkin steps to the bottom, you will end up at a nice spot to see the Black Sea. Here you will also find a sculpture called the “Golden Child”, and a memorial to some naval tragedy that occurred in August of 1986.  There’s also a new hotel here, the Kempeski Odessa, which has a wonderful restaurant.
  • Shevchenko Park­—Like Kharkiv, Odessa has a park named after Taras Shevchenko. There are lots of artisans in the park selling their wares; I got some nice souvenirs here.   However, some things I saw (like the dolls) are cheaper in Kharkiv.  But then, I think the cost of living in general is cheaper in Kharkiv.
  • Walking Street---This cobblestoned street near the park and closed to traffic, has some very upscale clothing stores (after all, it is the Mafia capital of Ukraine). There’s a less upscale but nice bookstore as well. And there’s a very popular McDonalds here.

 

THE RESTAURANTS:

 

I already mentioned that the restaurant at the top of the new Hotel Kempeski was very good. I had a steak entrecote there for 36 gryvnias (7 dollars), and we had a view of the Black Sea once we insisted on a proper table. There are two very good Ukrainian restaurants in Ukraine, but my fellow ELF ate in one with the evaluation team on Friday so we didn’t go out to one again. One is on the walking street and looks like a Ukrainian village.  Maybe next trip.  In the meantime, two other restaurants I recommend:

 

  • Clarabara—This is a bar and pub with jazz music on the weekends and excellent European  and American food (I’m not sure if it’s Ukrainian or Western or both).  I split with another ELF an appetizer of mashed eggplant and tomato with garlic.  Yum!  Others at our table ordered grilled vegetables which were excellent.  My pasta with salmon and shrimp in cream sauce was excellent as well. I’m glad I didn’t order a tuna sandwich, though, since it was a tuna steak on bread.  I enjoy the bread and meat sandwiches in Ukraine, but when I see what looks like a regular American sandwich I get excited but am usually disappointed by what I get.  For example, I once ordered a club sandwich that was a slab of ham with tomato on a club roll, not the triple decker turkey bacon and lettuce I would get in the States.  In contrast, the carrot cake at this restaurant transported me back to America. 
  • Estrellita—A little bit of Mexico in Odessa.  The tortilla chips were interesting (fried strips of floured tortilla seasoned with Mexican seasonings), but the cheese enchilada and chicken burrito were excellent. 

 

One cross-cultural point I have to make about eating out:  based on my experience here in Odessa and in Kharkiv, Ukrainians don’t seem to value eating as much as Americans do, and they value eating out even less. Maybe it’s because eating out is so expensive, and they are used to “home cooking”. Not to mention they have known some very lean times in their history so just as I have strong biological control of my bladder, they have biological control of their hunger out of necessity.   In my little tour group on Saturday this became a problem.  Two of us Americans were starving at noon, but because we were polite and said things like “we’d like to eat at some point” and tried to give reasons for eating earlier, we didn’t end up eating until 3:00.  So if you are an American or you have an “American appetite” and you are traveling the city with a Ukrainian, either eat a large meal before you meet, or be prepared to insist on stopping at a restaurant (sometimes offering to treat helps, but not necessarily). 

 

THE SHOPPING:

 

I’m not sure if Odessa gets a wider range of goods because its an international port city, or if things I saw in grocery stores there are available in Kharkiv but I don’t know where to look.  Or maybe I’ve seen things before in Kharkiv but didn’t want to spend money on it there, whereas when I’m “on vacation” I spend more money on things. All I know is that I went crazy buying American-style things that I hadn’t bought in a while.  Like lime juice so I can make fajitas. Like Louisiana Hot Sauce (overpriced at 20 gryvnias but I bought it anyway). Granola bars.  Nacho Cheese tortilla chips.  I didn’t buy the jar of Pace because it was hot taco sauce instead of salsa, but I was excited just to see it, like running into an old friend on the street that you haven’t seen in 5 years. Even the rynok (bazaar) in Odessa seemed better stocked. I bought spicy pickled vegetables from a Korean woman, and coriander from an Uzbek man. I saw boneless chicken breasts for the first time in Ukraine, and it was only 10 gryvnias for half a kilo ($2 a pound).  Since they were frozen I decided to buy it and take the risk that it might spoil on the train. (“Fortunately” the heat wasn’t working on the train, so although the chicken defrosted overnight, it was still cold.) 

 

Clothes shopping was a less positive experience.  The ELF who works in Odessa took me to a second hand store near the rynok. She got a great deal on two sweaters (30-40 gryvnias each).  I saw a pair of wool pants I liked and asked the salesclerk in a combination of Russian and gestures where I could try them on. She pointed me to a changing stall, but the stall was covered by curtains on only two of the four sides, and the two open sides faced a couple of men who were hanging out.  I looked at her and said “ne rabotaet” (it doesn’t work). She just laughed. I threw the trousers back on the table and walked out. 

 

THE TRAIN:

 

It’s a 15 hour train ride from Kharkiv to Odessa overnight, less from Kyiv.  Buying the ticket on my own was a half disaster. I was able to say in Russian that I want to go to Odessa tomorrow in a kupe (couchette).  But the clerk didn’t understand me when I said I wanted to return on Sunday.  Another woman (a clerk or a client, I’m not sure which) helped translate for me so I could get the return ticket on the right day.  I have to admit I was looking forward to Odessa, but I had never been on a train (or in anyplace) that long in my life and I was dreading that. Plus I had made a pact with myself after the trip to Kiev never to use the bathroom on the train. 

 

Inside my compartment were a man and a woman from Odessa. Maybe it was my imagination, but they way they talked and laughed I got the impression they weren’t happy to be sharing their compartment with other people, let alone with foreigners. Plus they spoke almost no English, and they laughed when I stumbled while reading Russian words from a magazine out loud.  The woman also laughed in shock at my combination lock for my luggage and my money belt because she had never seen such things before (she saw the latter because we had to change together in the compartment).  I could have laughed at her for laughing but chose not to.  Despite these reactions, they turned out to be very friendly and generous towards me.  They insisted on sharing their dinner with me:  bread with very good cold cuts on top, banana slices, cookies, and bread with a chocolate “dessert butter” (like Nutella but more fattening).  The fourth man in our compartment was a Nigerian who spoke fluent English and Russian. He came to the Soviet Union in 1984 on a scholarship from the USSR and has stayed ever since.  He had to study in a university here in Russian, so that motivated him to learn quickly.  He was very bright and was only a good translator for us, but he was defender of American policy in a debate with the Ukrainian man.  The Nigerian man, Jean, also gave me some of his beer. I know you are not supposed to accept drinks from strangers because it could be drugged, but I watched him open the bottle with some effort and decided he was a safe risk.  The beer was good, though it made it harder to keep my no-bathroom pact. The smells coming from the bathroom (which was only two doors door away) compensated for this, however. 

 

The evening passed quickly as we ate and drank, sat in the dark during momentary light outages, watched a two year old come running into our compartment and run back out again about 1000 times, and did a crossword together.  Yes, a crossword.  The man read the clues, the woman and the Nigerian tried to guess the words, and if the clue was about something English or Western European (like an English unit of measurement or a French river) they asked the Nigerian to explain the clue in English, then I tried to think of a word, then tried to transliterate it into Cyrillic to see if it would fit.  I don’t think I gave them any right answers, but it was fun trying.

 

The train ride back was similar.  There was a businessman from Odessa who had learned English from a Canadian 8 years ago, but only understood it.  Another woman in my compartment was from Kharkiv and spoke a little more English.  The third woman, I found out in the morning, was from Moldova (a small country on the southwestern border of Ukraine).  We stumbled through our Russian and English together. The man on the train shared his juice with me and bought all of us some very good chocolate with chocolate filling. I was prepared this time to share food—I offered everyone granola bars which I had bought in Odessa.  They were from Germany and labeled as “Muesli-Snack”; since I knew Russians know the word Muesli, I told them it was Muesli rather than trying to look up “granola bar” in the dictionary.  The man seemed a little surprised and maybe even afraid of it.  The woman from Kharkiv tried it and seemed to like it. The Moldovan woman asked how many calories it was; I had thrown out the box so I had no idea.  She declined. 

 

THE CRIME:

 

As I was walking with the ELF back to the rynok (on a Sunday in broad daylight), I turned to my left and noticed that a man was walking behind her very closely.  I yelled at him; he stepped to the side and held up a blue piece of paper, then kept walking.  My friend checked her backpack and saw that he had cut the mesh pocket on the back.  He didn’t get the 5 grynvias she had there (which I chastised her for keeping out in the open like that), but she would rather have lost the dollar than have to deal with repairing her backpack.  Regardless of the money, he had no right to attack her back like that. Apparently, however, such attacks are common in Odessa.  This woman’s colleagues said their purses had been slashed on the trolleybuses before.  It was my first time being an eyewitness to a crime like that, and I hope it’s my last.

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