Odesa: A City Away From War
What do you do when you’re the next in line to get attacked? Fill some sandbags, have a coffee?
The journey to Odesa in early March was an adventure from the metaphorical firing of the pistol. After crossing through Romania, the first thing I did once setting foot in Ukraine was to violate the martial law. We arrived early to the border at 16:00 to ensure we had enough time after crossing to get into Izmail before the Ukrainian curfew kicked in at 19:00. Only after passing through Romanian customs into the grey zone between countries were we told the next ferry would not pick us up until 18:00. This would leave us only one hour to traverse the river, go through the Ukrainian border and customs process, and drive the hour to Izmail. There was no way it could happen.
The driver that had been arranged for us canceled. We had to cancel the place we had lined up to stay at since we would not be able to get there in time. I was ready to give up and just sleep on one of the empty cots in a tent, which they assured us there were plenty of, and try again the next day. However, the fortitude of the woman I was traveling with shone brightly. She whipped her phone out and worked her way through everyone she knew with a connection in Izmail. In the end, the sister of a guy she met in prison 20 years ago while she was a social worker agreed to meet us.
So we took the ferry anyway. It was a ferry that dropped off a full load of people on the Romanian side of the river, and the only passengers that boarded to go into Ukraine were myself, the woman I was with, and two babushkas. A force to be reckoned with no doubt. The friend was waiting for us when we exited the Ukrainian border facility at 18:45. We made the mostly illegal drive through the snow in an eerily silent car to her home, where she fed me hot potatoes and let me sleep on her floor. I couldn’t draw up a better first night in Ukraine. There were even days old puppies.
The bus ride into Odesa the next day was like watching your child grow up, if your child was a military checkpoint. Every handful of kilometers a birthday, allowing you to witness its growth and see it make use of new material gifts. Beginning its life as a small, cuddly pile of sandbags in the road protecting a few small soldiers. Growing to the heavily enforced bunkers surrounded by tank traps, trenches, and teams of armed military personal that greet you at the gates of the famous port city. A slight smile crossed the face of the final soldier to check my USA issued passport. “Ha, okay sure” his grin seemed to say as he motioned me back on the bus.
The feeling of being back in a warzone is unmistakable. The air feels like it’s been laced with trace amounts adrenaline and dopamine, each breath bringing more awareness, more meaning than usual. The blood in your veins seems to circulate slightly closer to the surface. You feel the world more. Or perhaps you feel the world in a more real way. The way you would if all the bullshit that doesn’t matter, the junk that over time cakes onto your experience of life was rinsed off. It has been almost 20 years since my last war. The experience from a civilian perspective would be a new one.
Upon my arrival, I was escorted to the empty apartment of another woman I would be working with, one I was told her daughter normally lives in but is now empty for obvious reasons. It was cozy and welcoming: a kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. A palace if there ever was one. While showing me around and explaining how the space liked to be treated, we came across the water on/off nozzle. This nozzle controlled the water supply to the whole flat. She casually mentioned that if the air raid sirens go off, I was supposed to shut off the water supply and go to a shelter or a safe place. Made sense, I nodded in agreement and curiously asked where the shelters are located. Her response was priceless, “…Um…I don’t know, we all just stay in our homes.”
This is the vibe of Odesa. They know the war is raging in other parts of their country. Yet, the videos of exploding tanks and burning apartment buidlings they see on their phones represent a reality that is still a foreign concept here. The Russian troops never made it past Mykolaiv, the next city over. A fleet of Russian warships wander threateningly around in the Black Sea, but only occasionally come close enough to fire at Odesa’s coast or surrounding villages. The Ukrainian air defense systems will now and then shoot a missile out of the sky. The bangs, booms, and rat-a-tat-tats are sometimes heard through the city as defensive positions shoot down drones over the beaches. But for some, the hollow cries of the air raid sirens ringing with regularity throughout the day have come to feel more like church bells than any actual threat.
Odesa feels surprisingly alive, during the daytime hours when you are allowed to be outside your home. You can’t go to the beaches because they’re littered with mines, but the parks almost always have people and live music. The playgrounds at one of the main squares in front of the cathedral is often full of children. The restaurants, grocery stores, cafes, and pharmacies, and oddly enough, one lingerie store still have their doors open for those that didn’t leave. You can feel the love the people have for this city, especially when spring is in the air. There is a desire to move out of the cold, out of the darkness brought on by a winter that ended in war, into whatever light can be found.
The streets are reminiscent of the early days of Covid when only essential businesses were open, but if everyone just said fuck it and decided not to stay in their homes. Which is, in fact, exactly what has happened. A co-worker pointed out to me as we sat on a crowded bus “You notice a difference here? Nobody is wearing masks, there are just more important things happening.”
Perhaps the images of Ukraine’s other great cities being blasted into rubble have encouraged the remaing Odesans to enjoy the time they have with theirs, in case the war does one day decide to bring its full force down upon them. Until then however, they will frequent their favorite cafes, play jazz music on their patios, buy fresh vegetables from their favorite markets, and give head scratches to the hundreds of pregnant street cats that meander around this time of year.
At least that will be what the priviledged ones will do. For war has tragic consequences that reach far beyond the blast radius of artillery. In the several weeks since my arrival in Odesa, my time has been spent with aid organizations helping to provide much needed supplies like groceries and medicine for those who were already struggling to survive before the war started. When all the non-essential shops close up, when the jobs disappear, when the economy shifts the crumbs it has left towards war, the situation for people in poverty, people with disabilities, and the elderly becomes much more dire.
In my next post I will take you into the world of the aid work being done in Odesa. The story of the heroes and heroines who stayed to provide assistance to those not in a position to leave.
