“Even if they can’t just be seen there and point to us”. The Odessa coast is a huge moat of sand and Friesland horses, guarded 24 hours a day by hundreds of soldiers who have been in charge for a month. It is a unique moat in its own way because it is lapped by water. The waters of the Black Sea, that’s where the enemy hides. Three cruise missiles arrived from there on the 31st day of the war, which were promptly shot down by the Ukrainian antiaircraft guns. The Pontus Eusinus, the “hospitable sea” of ancient Greece, has nothing to offer Odessa other than hospitality.
The trenches on the Odessa coast are closed to civilians. And if it is possible to visit them, the guest is invited to remove the geolocation in the mobile phone and take photos without giving any indication of the surrounding landscape. In one of these trenches, a soldier’s promotion to captain is celebrated on a cloudy war Friday. On this occasion, three members of the Odessa Philharmonic come to a beach bar in peacetime. A musician and two singers. The mood is even boisterous, folk songs are sung and people stand up for the Ukrainian national anthem. “Slavia ukraini” (Honour of Ukraine) is the salute with which the musicians and soldiers close the short interlude. Then everyone goes back to their homework. One thing above all: explore the coast.
In the distance, but not too far, the antiaircraft defense makes itself felt. The blows are repeated, the sky is covered by a glow. Three are the Russian missiles shot down by the Ukrainians, according to the Southern Operational Command. “Our brigade was in Donbass. Then we returned in September, says one soldier, without specifying the number of team members. A little further on is a soldier in a fighting position: machine gun aimed at the Black Sea, now and then he pulls himself up to stretch his legs. Three cats, alongside the one that served as a bathers’ changing room until last summer, make their silent contribution to the patrol. Barbed wire and Friesian horses stand out in the middle of the beach. Going further would be fatal: the ground is mined. This applies to the entire Odessa coast, with the exception of Arcadia Beach, the beach of unbridled nightlife, where now the maximum allowed freedom is a barefoot walk on the sand.
Waiting in Odessa is sometimes nervewracking. Mayor Gennady Trukhanov, someone who never sent them to say so, explained to the Ukrainian media why the city remains one of Moscow’s top targets. The risk, he warned, “is that it will be surrounded.” On one side from the sea, on the other from the east when the Russians break through at Mykolayiv. And from the west. West? Yes, because just over an hour’s drive from Odessa is the selfproclaimed Republic of Transnistria. A few months ago he made headlines for Sheriff Tiraspol, the Champions League investigative team. Now it could act as a Belarusian counterpart to a Moscow offensive in the south.
Waiting in Odessa at other times doesn’t seem to care about the missiles. The socalled “book market has tentatively returned to fill up. It’s not just about books. It can be found from Italian coffee to Spanish tuna. Euro and dollar are exchanged in black. And in the last few days, antiRussian souvenirs have also appeared: from magnets to lapel pins to Tshirts with the inscription “Puterast, an amalgamation of the words Putin and pederast. And from Saturday morning the zoo in Odessa will open again.
He’ll have fewer hours, but forgetting about this damn war for a little bit will do for now.