Frankly Speaking: Odessa

Since my formal teaching and speaking responsibilities are finished in Moldova, I am continuing my exploration of this part of the world. So on Tuesday I traveled to Odessa, Ukraine for a visit with a former Wingate Student, Vasyl and his wife Maria, and a tour of the city. Odessa is a beautiful port city on the Black Sea, and if it was easier for the family to get there we would all make the trip.

I decided to take the train because the bus is usually a very cramped, body-jolting ride on rough roads and I cannot read or do much in a car/bus. The train, on the other hand, is not the most comfortable ride (see the nice wooden benches below) but it is spacious and it is relatively smooth for reading and writing.

I had a long bench to myself, but the downside is that it takes a long time to travel 157 kilometers. With essentially three border stops (Moldova, Transnistria, and Ukraine), there is a lot of stopping and waiting for someone to check your passport, ask questions, look intimidating, and prolong the journey. So after 4.5-5 hours the train finally traveled between Chisinau and Odessa.

Mark Twain said, "I have not felt so much at home for a long time as I did when I 'raised the hill' and stood in Odessa for the first time." I'm not sure I felt the same, for Odessa is unlike Charlotte, but it does look like a very modern Western European city. Catherine the Great wanted to build Odessa with European architecture and this style was preserved. She is revered, in contrast to other Soviet era leaders, for I saw no statues of Lenin, etc.

Twain's "raised the hill" comment reminds me of climbing the Potemkin Stairs which leads from the huge sea port to the heart of old Odessa. Potemkin was a Russian military leader and lover of Catherine the Great, and she called him Prince of the Russian Empire. The view from these stairs shows the size of this beautiful port and the Black Sea.