Odessa

The ride across the Black Sea (of course it isn’t, by the way) was uneventful, and we arrived in Odessa (population over a million) about mid-afternoon. In the USSR we do not have a choice, no one is permitted to leave the ship unless on a tour conducted by Intourist, the USSR tourist office. They took our passports and give us a special passport with a red cover, good for this time period only.

The weather is depressing, and the town is not much better. We drove past building after building that just seemed dull. It’s neither ancient, nor new, and it looks like it. Can’t imagine why, but through a window in one Odessa school, we could see a large US Flag. We remember seeing one church with fancy “onion” domes, but the guide made no comment.

Some ladies wore mini-skirts, and there are boys on skate-boards riding here and there, doing the kinds of things USA kids do. How did they know, who told them, or vice-versa?

Most of the buildings can stand maintenance, or painting at least, and one high rise (maybe 10 or 12 stories) apartment building had just unpainted boards as the railing on all the balconies. Both the boards and the building look many years old, it isn’t still under construction. The Opera is a very impressive building from the outside, but our ship arrived here at the wrong time, so we can’t attend the function that was scheduled.

There are plenty of sidewalk cafes, and a drink vendor offering drinks from what must have been a 500 gallon tank, mounted on a large trailer. There is a wide, several story-high staircase built by, or at least dedicated to Pushkin, a poet and author. A sign on a post, said in English, “Camping.” I used my Visa card to buy a telescope at the Intourist Store, and we stopped at an Intourist Hotel just to use the ancient restrooms.

The whole time on this tour we were given a strong dose of propaganda, all about what “they” did in WWII — they must have won it all by themselves. At one place, after a strong speech, only a couple of people walked down a long sloped walkway to visit the “Tomb of the Unknown Sailor.” Our guide, Gallime, was very unhappy with us, so the bus sat there while she, over and over, told the story of the heroic Soviet military, to the bus load of hostages. We never had the chance to see many things of interest in Odessa, if there were any.