Tour to Odessa and parks.

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Odessa and a Walk In a Park

Sunday, May 23, 1999

Dear Family and friends,

It's Sunday and I should be studying Russian. Instead I'm writing. Russian is hard work but this writing has become fun. It's a bit like chatting over the back fence and we all know that's preferable to doing yard chores. For the most part, our new lifestyle involves very little in the way of "chores" &endash; no yard, no kids, no car, very small and simple apartment. Russian studies are an addition and are hard and frustrating &endash; but so was trying to catch that darn gopher that was tearing up our Los Gatos backyard a couple years ago. Just a change in pesky chores.

However, we did things this weekend. We spent 24 hours on a train. We spend 12 hours in the Black sea port of Odessa. And we looked at a great hill of lilac flowers back here in Kyiv. This even left time for a market trip and this diary entry.

Friday night, we went to the train station and caught the 8:30pm overnight train to Odessa. It was our favorite, The Grand Tour coach and once again, it's the poor man's Orient Express. I actually think it's a great travel secret and going down we had just two other passengers in the whole coach. Coming back we were alone. Well, us and the steward and stewardess. Going down, we started with a picnic dinner in our compartment. After, the stewardess brought coffee and we settled down for our 12 hour trip. Odessa is about 300 or 400 miles south of Kyiv and the railroad is mostly flat and straight. But that doesn't mean it's fast. Or smooth. On this first night, the bouncing kept us awake much of the night but exhaustion would help our sleep on the return.

Saturday morning, we got off in Odessa to a cloudy but not too cold day. Near the station we saw an Orthodox monastery that rose from a busy street like a miniature version of the famous church in Moscow. At least that's what it seemed like to us. In Soviet times, it was used as a planetarium. For the next twelve hours we walked. And walked. And walked. I had thirty pounds of camera equipment in my backpack and Marianne had all our clothes and necessities in hers. There were times when we questioned the wisdom of us old folks traipsing around town like some ancient hippies but it was fun.

Odessa gives the sense of a glorious old seaport, a century past her prime. Mark Twain wrote about it in it's glory. Many of the same buildings Sam Clemens saw are probably still there but the city is pretty worn down by now. I tried to get some shots to represent the old grandeur but only this unrestored entry and this restored shopping mall captured much of the feel. The "unrestored look" was much more common but this small shopping center was an impressive exception. I failed to get a detail shot of all the nubile women depicted over the doors and windows but this mall was definitely not our normal Ukrainian tourist scene of churches, catacombs and monuments to the glorious Soviet worker. Definitely pre-Soviet work. And workers.

No trip to Odessa is complete without a trip down (and, unfortunately, back up) the Potemkin steps. These lead to the original shipping piers and they were the scene of a sailor's rebellion in the late teens or early twenties. Part of Sergei Eisenstein's famous 1925 movie, Battleship Potemkin, or so everyone told us. It was well before our time. Elsewhere, there were very nice parks and just walking around the pier or on the overlooking park, it was easy to get the feel of an active shipping center. I'm sure Ukraine would like their major port to be busier but as we watched, there were boats arriving and leaving for Istanbul and others offloading goods from Asia and around the world.

By the time we climbed back up to the central city we were hungry and eventually we made it to Mick O'Neals Irish pub. This place is on a street that's closed to vehicle traffic and it was all a charming setting. Lots of people strolling and having fun. This was definitely the street to hang around to get a positive image of Odessa because it was filled with people of all ages enjoying themselves. Next door to McDonalds was a Cuban restaurant called "Fidel's" and a large number of Ukrainian/Russian/European places as well. At one end was an open-air art fair in a park that was filled with families out walking the kids.

Finally, we hauled our backpacks the mile to the train station and we collapsed. The train pulled out at 9:30 p.m. and I think we were asleep by 10. Ten hours of reasonable sleep later we were sipping our coffee in the compartment &endash; still 90 minutes from Kyiv. Boy, is this train slow. But eventually we did arrive and I decided to get our obligatory picture of the Grand Tour coach. Suddenly a train "official" hollered "nyet" &endash; and then quickly went over to be in the picture with Marianne. Friendly Ukraine, we never know when or how it will strike.

Now, you might think this is the end &endash; but it's not. We had to go straight from the train to the Botanical Gardens in order to take pictures of Lilac trees. Marianne's mom had suggested we do this and you know how "suggestions" from Mom's are. (I miss my Mom's "suggestions" and I never thought I would. It's funny how that happens.)

This part of the tour is quick. There were quite a few people out for a Sunday stroll and the flowers lived up to press billings. Marianne is the flower photographer in the family, but I like this little one even if it isn't a lilac. But there are lilacs in this view of flowers, a church and the Dniper River in the background. Kyiv Spring may be able to drown out the memories of Winter after all.

So there you have it. Just another weekend. A bit of travel, as best we can do. A tour of gardens someone else has to plant, trim and maintain. And a last shot of Marianne doing our mandatory weekend chore &endash; hunting and gathering.

Take care and pray for peace in the Balkans. And in Africa. And everywhere else while you're at it.

John and Marianne

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Originally mailed May 23, 1999. Reformatted June 3, 2001.

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