Did We Find Barcelona in the Ukraine?

Next stop... Monday... must be Odessa, Ukraine!  Odessa was called “The Pearl of the Black Sea” and actually is the 4th most important city when it was part of the USSR -- behind Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Warsaw.  Now it is the 4th largest city as well as the most important city in the Ukraine.  It is the biggest seaport on the Black Sea and was really important to Russia because it is a warm water port. So for centuries Russia had been trying to conquer the area to get that warm water port!  

You may remember that I took a course on Catherine the Great and one of the things I remember is her determination to conquer the area!  She sent her lover Grigory Potemkin to head the army against the Ukrainians, as she trusted him the most.  And the Russians did finally get their port.  Potemkin, however, did not want to go home to St. Petersburg and his Catherine.  So...Catherine decided to float down the Dneiper River to not only see what she had won, but also see her Potemkin!  Well, he was supposed to be building cities along the river from all the money she had been shipping to him.  However, he’d been having a rather fun time being the ruler of the area and had not produced the cities.  What to do?  Well, I guess he knew Catherine would not get off the boat to check, so he built what were called “Potemkin Villages”, which were like Hollywood storefronts along the river here and there.  Looked great from the boat, but nothing was behind them!!  

In any case, Potemkin stayed on in the Crimea and was buried here, where Catherine had a large tomb built for him.  However, since she had a rather large sexual appetite and he was no longer interested, he picked out various soldiers to satisfy her.  And, when she got bored with each one, she would give them lots of money, titles, and palaces.  So the soldiers she so graced were more than willing to bed a rather elderly chubby lady!!  Good arrangement for both Catherine, the soldiers -- and Potemkin!

What struck us about Odessa was how much the boulevards looked like Barcelona, only rundown.  The streets were lined with tall trees, the buildings had iron balconies on the second and third stories.  Lots of designer shops.  With a little bit of paint and cleaning up and you’d have a mini-Barcelona (without Gaudi, however) The opera house here is supposed to be the second best opera house in Europe, next to VIenna, and was modeled and designed by the same people. And there are boulevards just for walking lined with chestnut and sycamore trees and benches for people to sit and muse.

While the city as 1 million inhabitants, it has ALSO 200,000 stray dogs who run around in packs.  We saw an elderly lady with a cane cornered by a barking dog that looked like a cross between a golden lab and german shepard.  Our guide ran over and tried to scare away the dog, whereupon the dog turned on her.  And finally he ambled off with his buddies.  When we drove through a park, we saw an area totally covered with hundreds of dogs sleeping on the dirt and under the trees!  I don’t think they know about leashes in this part of the world!

Next up: the World War II war memorial, which is guarded by school children, who change every half hour.  And, as they go down to the memorial, they goose step.  So eery to see children in uniforms goose stepping -- and Bos has a movie of this!

But you never forget you are in a former Soviet area, as there are soldiers all around with guns, as well as police.  This is the one port we had to have our actual passports and they had to be stamped by the officials from Ukraine!  Most ports will allow the ship to show the passports!  

Also remember this is the country where the president Yuvchenko was poisoned with dioxin by the KGB!  His face was permanently pockmarked, but he survived -- just a warning when the KGB/Russkies don’t like you!! What was Yuvchenko’s crime?  He was trying to westernize his country and was looking to Europe and the U.S. for guidance.  Dangerous, I guess, when the KGB is looking on!!  See below what happened to our butler

Our guide who waS very earnest, but very bad took us to a thatched roof restaurant overlooking the water where we had borscht, meat rollsz, boiled potatoes, shots of vodka, and crepes.  Do they think they are RUssian?  I’d say a resounding “yes”.  It has been hard for them to accept the fact that they need to provide for themselves, as they are used to the government taking care of everything.  And paperwork to do anything from start a business to buy an apartment is overwhelming.  So, our guide said, most people give up!!  Makes our lives seem much simpler. 

And safer.  WHen we got back to the ship we were talking to our butler Binoy, who is from India.  Oftentimes at a port, the ship employees go ashore as well.  He was walking with another shipmate when a man in uniform with a badge stopped him, asking for his papers and everything in his pocket.  He had about $450 dollars, mostly in $50 bills which he handed over to the man, thinking he was really an official.  This part of the world can be scary, so he did not doubt the “policeman”.  It was only after he got his paperwork back and the policeman had left that he noticed four of his $50 bills were missing!  Beware, huh!!

All in all, I am really appreciating things we take for granted in the U.S. -- law and order, freedom of speech --- and so far I don’t think we poison our leaders when we don’t like them!!

P.S.  We did add a picture of the Whirling Dervishes in the earlier blog called"You Asked About the Food..."Yes, we really did!!