Between air-raid alerts and missile strikes, life in Odesa continues apace
We report from the Black Sea port city of Odesa, where life goes on, despite the threat of Russian attacks.
In a sane world, it would be difficult to move on Odesa’s cobbled streets for young men on stag nights, city-breakers trying to avoid them and influencers photographing themselves in front of beautiful buildings resembling wedding cakes (writes Andrew Mueller). In our world, however, no budget airlines are touching down at Odesa International – or have done so for more than three years. I came here for the annual Black Sea Security Forum, which convened this past weekend. In keeping with the municipal tradition of swaggering flamboyance, the event was far from reserved about trying to draw attention to the city. The panels were held in Odesa’s glorious Opera House, while the closing-night drinks featured a performance by 2022 Eurovision Song Contest winners Kalush Orchestra.
These are not easy times in which to hold an international event here. Getting to Odesa, Ukraine’s third-biggest city, and the Black Sea’s most crucial port, currently requires taking a roadtrip from Chișinău, the capital of neighbouring Moldova. For Monocle, this proved a pretty stress-free three hours and change, as we cruised through the well-kept villages that punctuate Moldova’s wine country but skirting Transnistria, the odd little Russian proxy statelet carved out of Moldova in the early 1990s and a source of anxiety since the war’s onset that it could be used as a springboard for another expression of Russian revanchism.
The Moldova-Ukraine border wasn’t too much of an obstacle. It has been the previous experience of this correspondent that getting in and out of countries at war can only be measured in hours, if you’re lucky. We got through in not much longer than it took to get a passport stamped.
Once in Ukraine, and even once in Odesa, you can go a while without really noticing that anything is up. On the road there are a couple of army checkpoints. In the city, there are camouflage nets and sandbags outside police stations and where there used to be a statue of Catherine the Great – the launcher of a previous Russian invasion of Ukraine – there is now an improvised memorial to those lost fighting back the current onslaught. The grass around the plinth is planted with photos, banners and blue-and-gold flags inscribed with names and dates.
But Odesa’s shops, bars and restaurants are mostly open, the parks are full of people doing their best to enjoy the summer and life gives every impression of going on. Here, as elsewhere in Ukraine, you can download an app that apprises you of air-raid alerts. There were a couple on my first day and if these ever did cause Odesans to scramble for the shelters, they’re over it now.
Which is not to say that the risk is not real. Within the past week or so, Russia has launched some of the heaviest drone and missile barrages of the entire war. A missile strike on Odesa’s docks killed three people and a drone raid in the city’s suburbs damaged residential buildings. It might seem strange that Odesans have grown used to this. It should seem outrageous that their fellow Europeans have.
