Getting
to Odessa from Kiev by airplane is an adventure in itself but we make it.
Mysterious Odessa from spy novels of the 60’s is a town of faded glory
whose time will surely come again. Wonderful
19th Century architecture with wide leafy, wooded boulevards abound
with residents strolling around. And
stroll they do, after work and on the weekends.
The best of Odessa compares well with any major European capital.
Old cars are in the majority
perhaps, but not so many that the traffic is a problem. Wedding parties
are in evidence everywhere as the weekend approaches, getting photographed at
all the famous locations.
In
October 1941 one could walk all over town and see lampposts adorned with people
hanging from them, courtesy of the invading Rumanians and Germans. On October 23, 19,000 Jews were herded into a square down at
the harbor. They were doused in gasoline and set alight.
Today, the Great Synagogue sits unobtrusively in the heart of the city
and on the Sabbath before Yom Kippur it is less than 25% full.
It’s a Lubavitch Orthodox congregation with the women separated from
the men. We sit through the service
and speak afterwards with the Rebbe and one of the congregants who tells us that
the Rebbe’s grandfather was the reigning Rebbe in 1927 when a pogrom shut down
the synagogue, which was trashed and later turned into a gymnasium.
In 1992 after the fall of the Soviet Union, the grandson led the
re-opening and today there are 50,000 Jews in Odessa and there is a quiet
gratefulness that time has proved once more that irrespective of man’s
inhumanity to man, we can survive and even prosper.
We
walk everywhere. The famous Potemkin Steps are the focal point for
the
many wedding parties and few
tourists mainly from Russia and Germany. The beaches are almost empty although a
few topless bathers are hanging around. A
young farm lass drives a milk truck up the streets selling milk and yogurt right
out of a cylinder on the back of the truck. We catch a tram to who knows where and lo, we are in the
heart of the city – at the central market.
The market is a sight to behold. It’s
huge and you can buy anything from paint to potatoes. Many vendors park their trucks side by side, open up the
backs and sell groceries, cosmetics and compact discs. Vendors selling similar goods are parked right next to each
other so, comparison shopping is a breeze.
Likewise, the fruit and vegetable vendor stalls.
There is not much attempt to proactively sell much.
Vendors just wait with bored expressions to sell something to anyone who
approaches. We meet some
wonderfully friendly vendors of dried fruit and nuts and it turns out they are
from Uzbekistan. They insist on
serving us some tea.
That
night we attend a piano recital in the city’s concert hall. It costs us a dollar and the place is packed.
We have had a really good time and the next day we pack up and catch a
taxi to Nikolaev, an hour and a half away.