Some Swans in Odessa

            (This is a response to the previous post by John)

Visiting the Odessa Opera House was a total surprise for me. First of all, I was astonished because it was John’s idea and he had never before expressed the slightest interest in opera or ballet. Actually I remember hearing him say something in the past about disliking opera but the lack of evidence doesn’t allow me to prove this.

Secondly, I have never seen the Kharkov Opera theatre as crowded as I saw Odessa’s Opera House, especially during the summer months which are considered to be the “dead season” to all those who perform at, help run or attend the theatre. Surprisingly, there was no scene with celebrities from abroad, no scandalous director, and no innovations. It was a strict classic hackneyed performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet. I would never have expected tickets to be completely sold out. It was absolutely fascinating to see all those people trying to get access to the ticket box after it was closed or looking for some different ways to get into the theatre.

The performance itself could have been better considering the agitation that was displayed outside. This could be mainly regarded to the orchestra, which wasn’t massive enough to drown the sound of dancing. It was passable during single dances and even pas de trois, but not during the corps de ballet collective dances. Some giggling went through the audience when we were hearing the heavy sound of “little swans” feet. In my opinion they decided to cut down on expenses and sent  most of the musicians on vacation. This was very smart, because people go to ballet not to listen but mainly to see, so who cares about music and aesthetics of performance?

Anyway, the Opera House has its special “artistic” atmosphere, with its luxurious décor and interior, which at once reminded me of all the world’s best-looking theaters such as La Scala, Prague, Dresden, Vienna Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. But of course I have only seen them in movies and pictures.

Swan Lake in Odessa Opera House, 2011, July, 6th

Defining the style of the Opera House, John somehow came up with Italian baroque, but I’ve read only about its referring to Viennese baroque (all building) and French rococo (audience hall interior).

Some more interior photos. Odessa Opera House, 2011, July, 6th

                                 

It’s a pity for me, but I would never think about a style mixture like this looking at Kharkov Opera and Ballet Theatre, which gained a folk title of “Fantômas castle”, because of its horrendous and somehow hilarious, heavy, soviet-type architecture. To add fuel to the fire, the project of this building, made by Soviet architerctor Mirgorodskiy was planned for both Kiev and Kharkov but was rejected by the first one.

Posted by Helen

Odessa, Z to A, --- The Odessa Opera and Ballet Theater

               The most recent time I returned from America it seemed to me that I take pleasure in torturing myself. I had arrived in Kiev but I did not even allow myself the luxury of spending a night in a hotel. I crashed briefly at a hostel so I could shower and pull myself together before hoping on the night train to Kharkiv. The next day I dropped off my luggage in my apartment and then I got on another overnight train to Odessa. Somehow during this time I did meet someone at the hostel that said he (Let us call this person Mr. C.) was planning on going to Odessa. I explained how I was also going there but that my journey would be in a roundabout way. I suggested he look me up when he arrived. This fellowship ended up being very useful to me during the Odessa trip. I really like crashing at (the lowly) hostels when I travel alone because it is so easy to make friends. If I do this in a city that I’m familiar with, afterward I’m sure to share my experience. I have taken my new friends out to some of my favorite restaurants/clubs numerous times. Once, my brothers and I reserved a 4 bed compartment for the three of us to travel to Kiev. One of my friends told me that he needed to go to Kiev but the train was sold out. After speaking to my brothers we agreed to sell the extra ticket to my friend. He was lucky that he had taken the time to make friends in low places.

            Let me return to Odessa…. While I had been there many times, I had only seen the Opera House (http://www.opera-ballet.tm.odessa.ua ) from the outside. The facade is an Italian Baroque style. I think of its location as being at one end of the “tourist strip” of Deribasovskaya Street. (The opposite end would be near the City Garden.)The “pedestrian only” part is a little father west. This area is open to cars and seems to attract bridal limos whose occupants are looking for a photo opportunity.

I did meet up with Mr. C in Odessa. A few of us met for drinks at a small place in Arcadia (more on the Acadia later). I expressed an interest in going to the Opera House to see a performance. It was our understanding that the season’s final show was coming up. One of Mr. C’s friends that had accompanied him told us that he had a lot of contacts at the Opera House and he could help us get tickets. Later in the week we met him there. There was a bit of a crowd that queued up on that rainy night to see a performance of Swan Lake. We found out that the tickets were sold out. However, our new friend told us that his associate would let us in the door if we paid a small bribe. After doing so we were then informed that another comrade would allow us to enter a box for another little bribe.

            We were escorted into a small extremely dim room and were given seats. I couldn’t see anything because it was pitch dark. I actually felt like standing so I just leaned against the wall. After awhile my night vision noticed that there were about 10 other people in the room. In a little while the usher let another couple in. They were given the last two chairs. However, since I wasn’t sitting in my seat it was given to a young woman. That was the last seat in the booth. Somehow even though I decided to stand, now I seemed to desire that seat since I could no longer have it. When the house lights were turned up a little we could see much more of the Opera and Ballet Theater. The inside was quite ornate. It had a Louis XVI design with gilded figures. I recently watched the movie Dangerous Liaisons and I felt that the Odessa Opera House could have easily been used for the theater scenes for that film which was set in 18^th century France. The ballet was quite good (of course I’m not a ballet aficionado so take my recommendation with a grain of salt) and I remembered that the last ballet I saw was in fact The Nutcracker (during a Holiday Season). That was another one that was scored by Tchaikovsky.

            The Odessa Opera House was rebuilt in 1887 after the original was destroyed by fire in 1873. It is similar in design to Dresden’s Semperoper. While that theater was completely destroyed during WWII; the Odessa Opera house had only one corner damaged. It seats 1,636 and has 24 exits to prevent the loss of life in case of a fire. Strangely enough, the night I was there it appeared to me that everyone entered and exited thru the main entrance; even those sans tickets. I would like to return to see another performance. Maybe next time I will be proactive enough to buy tickets in advance.

             

              Posted by John

Odessa with a P: Port, Portal and 2 smoking cannons.

      (This is a response to the previous post by John)

     The fact that I will start a discussion about something that I have never seen before is all John’s fault. I‘m talking about the Eiffel Tower which he compared to the Potyomkin Stairs, which would definitely lose out in terms of height, size and the ability to observe a good view. According to these mentioned parameters, the new title of Eiffel Tower should rather be given to the glass & steel hotel “Odessa” in the center of the sea port: sky-blue, sky-high (both in height and prices).

Sea port, “Odessa” hotel

                                   
     I bet somebody would find it exiting that in front of the building there is a cannon pointed at the entrance like a symbol of perishable life. This is typical for Odessa with its specific sense of humor that is known all over Ukraine.

Seaport, a cannon right in front of the “Odessa” hotel

                The Hotel’s location is very poor though if you’re a tourist without your own yacht or jet because all the beaches are very far away.

Various yachts could be an attraction for unpretentious port visitors like me, who associate them with a “sweet life”

     Even though you’re more interested in downtown activities, every time you want to go to there you’ve got to climb up the much talked-about stairs.

View of the hotel and port from Potyomkin stairs

                           I don’t like the transliteration John suggested, even though Microsoft Word thinks that I’m wrong. It should be pronounced “Potyomkin”, not “PotEmkin”, but you can find it both ways in the information sources.
     What are the stairs of my dreams that are perfect as a tourist-attraction? At first, I would consider it fascinating if they offered a nice panoramic view during observing which causes you to try to catch your breath and have butterflies in your stomach. And secondly, they might give you adrenalin of stones rolling from feet into the precipice, because the stairs are high, old and have been there since, for example, times of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, there is some heroic feeling of getting through obstacles in the face of 1000 steps or so. This all is definitely not about the Potyomkin stairs. They do not seem marvelous at any point of view except for some historical associations, so I don’t know what all the people are making a fuss about.
     Primorsky Boulevard, situated perpendicularly to Potyomkin steps, a place for lazy ice-cream eaters and souvenir sellers during the hottest hours of the day, is more amusing than stairs and represented by mixture of culture artifacts partly mentioned by John. There are monuments of different times and significance, one more cannon, P.D.A. on benches, a pillar which shows the distance to any city you would like to know or rather never wanted to know (this is the best spot for ridiculous photos), remains of an ancient settlement covered with glass cupola what makes it look like a cage of hidden or escaped dangerous animals etc. I especially liked the “Lonely girl” portal (walk on the right if you you’re standing back to stairs), white pillars of which nowadays are disfigured by profound writings.
     According to the legend, the wife of a seaman was waiting looking for him from this hill. And every year they would add one more pillar to the “portal.” Modern inscriptions may explain who the guy she was expecting to come back was:

 Primorsky park. Lonely portal. Poor example, but the funniest things, of course, were written in Russian

   

     The situation of anticipating, the quintessence of all sea port cities’ mood, is also expressed in the statue of a girl with a “baggage” in the port which looks strange with the view of urban scenery behind:

 Seaport: Sailor’s Wife monument

                                               

     As opposed to compromising the romance of the “Lonely girl” portal by political, musical and not very polite discussions written on its pillars, the Mother-in-law bridge, which is next to it, at the right end of boulevard if you stand back to the sea, has somehow turned into a romantic place with a large amount of locks hung there in the symbol of eternal love.

Mother in-law-bridge under the burden of “love” locks

                     Posted by Helen

Odessa, Z to A, --- That is “Potemkin” with a “T”.

The Potemkin Steps are to Odessa what the Eiffel tower is to Paris. They became famous because of the horrific scene shot there that was part of the 1925 silent movie, The Battleship Potemkin. Of course, the bloodshed on the steps was actually some motion picture make-believe. The killings happened in different locations.

Actually, maybe I should start off with the correct name of this attraction. Last year my brother made a slideshow of our trip through Eastern Europe. He titled one of the slides “The Potemkin Stairs”. I corrected him and said it was actually the “Potemkin Steps”.  He followed with a link that supported his version of the name. At this point, I was confused but actually things got worse. I did a little research and found out that essentially we were both sort of right. Or wrong if you are a half empty sort of person.

Today they are officially known as the Primorsky Stairs but they were originally called the Boulevard Steps. The name was changed first in Soviet times and then changed again when Ukraine received her independence. Today most people in Odessa use the former Soviet name, the Petemkin Stairs but my Ukrainian guide book calls them the Potemkin Steps. I will not even bring up the Russian or Ukrainian spellings.

 Anyway the “Odessa Steps” originally had 200 steps but over time they were reduced by eight. Supposedly, if you count the steps and they do not add up to 192 then these are the number of sins that you have recently committed. I will not tell you how many steps that Helen counted but I think it would be a good time for her to go to confession. The steps/stairs have a couple of cool optical allusions. One of them is that looking down it is possible to only see the 10 landings and looking up from the bottom you might only see the steps. There is a cable railway to one side of the steps. This was originally built in 1906. It was replaced by an escalator in 1970 and then a funicular returned in 2004.

 At the top of the steps, you have a wonderful view of the port and the Odessa Hotel. At one time this was the principal port for the largest country in the world. It was possible to board a ship to any destination across the globe. Also here is a bronze statue of Duc de Richelieo. He was the person, who designed the city under Catherine the Great and served as the first governor, (1803-1814). He was a royalist that escaped from France during the French Revolution but who returned home in 1814. The statue was erected in 1828. If you think of a “T” with the stem going down the stairs then there are interesting items at both ends of the top line. On the left side you would walk along the bul (boulevard ) Prymorsky until you reach the City Hall which was built around 1830. (I believe in my guided walking tours I actually called this the Mayor’s house. Please don’t tell my brothers about my error!) There is also a monument to Alexander Pushkin here as well as a cannon that was captured from the French ship, “Tiger” during the Crimean War. (At this point you are just down a hill from a large fountain which is next to the Opera House but we will talk about that in the next post of this series.)

    Going in the other direction would bring you to the unrestored Vorontsov Palace which was built in 1826. There is also a foot bridge here known as the Mother in Law’s bridge. This was built in the 1950s by a communist official. It is said that it was built so it would be easier for his mother in law to visit by some people but the opposing view is that it was constructed so it was less likely she would have to spend the night. Naturally, this bridge is covered by love-locks that have swept Europe since the early part of this century. This custom is thought to have started in China. Couples attach locks and throw away the key to symbolize their never ending love. I have never seen this in America.

  To finish off my “T” let me talk about the statue of Catherine the Great. This is directly up the street (toward the city center) from the steps. There was a statue to honor the sailors of the battleship Potemkin here but it was replaced with the one of the Empress in 2007. Catherine brought this region of Ukraine into the Russian Empire so the Russians seem to like the current statue. However, the Ukrainians, the Tatars and Cossacks who were oppressed during her reign seem to favor the former one. It is said to be in storage so it may find a new home somewhere else in the city sometime in the future.

             Posted by John

Odessa, Z to A, --- the Zirka Hotel

          I have been informed that Zirka (зірка) means “Star” in Ukrainian and Google translation has verified this fact. I may have thought it would be fine to have plans to stay in a Ukrainian Hotel called “Star”? Perhaps I was a bit optimistic. I have been to Odessa a few times and have stayed at a number of unusual locations. The best place that I have crashed at was The Odessa Hotel (http://odessa-hotel.com.ua/en/). It had many amenities and to say it had a pleasant view would be an understatement. It is actually located in the harbor overlooking the Black Sea. The major drawback is that it is located at the bottom of the Potemkin Steps. This means that if you visit the city center you must go up and down these 192 steps! While roaming alone, I have also stayed at a couple of hostels. These are cheap and it is usually effortless to make friends with other people who are staying in the city. However, most of the accommodations are usually bunk beds in a room with 8-12 other people. My current favorite is The Babushka Grand Hostel. I really like the free Wi-Fi and the big bathtub/shower. I need to remember to bring my rubber ducky next time.

On my recent trip to Odessa I thought that a hostel would not be a good choice because I had a traveling companion, (let’s call this person T.C.). A friend (I’ll call him “Mr. M”) that was traveling with us thought that the Zirka Hotel (70 Uspenskaya St) or the Tokyo Star Hotel would be a good place to stay. I followed his suggestion because I thought it would be easier if we all stayed together. I went and booked a room at Zirka by sending them an e-mail (no credit card required) but then my friend reserved a room at Tokyo Star, (Tokyo Zirka?). We had a night train from Kharkiv that was arriving before 9:00 at the Odessa Train Station. I thought we couldn’t check in to the hotel until the afternoon so I set something up that would allow us to take a shower and leave our luggage at another place. I arranged to do this and then planned to meet Mr. M for breakfast before we went to the beach. When we exited the train station, Mr. M tried to figure out where Tokyo Star was located. I was eager to take a shower and suggested that he just take a taxi. The taxi would have cost about 30 Hryvnia (grivna) which is less than $4. He had T.C ask directions and started walking that way. I really didn’t want to carry my luggage to his hotel and then go to the place where I could shower but T.C. was being helpful and I didn’t want to ruin the mood.

When we arrived at Tokyo Star I waited outside while Mr. M checked the place out. I never saw the room but he said it was “like a shoe box”. I presume this lodging might have a “hot sheet” reputation. In any case, he decided not to stay there and he was going to go to Zirka instead. We all started to leave with him heading to the “Star” while we went to take a shower. I never found out if he paid extra to check in early. If he didn’t it would have made my “showering place” unnecessary.

Later in the afternoon, we did check into Zirka ($37 a night) as well. The place seemed agreeable enough; the lobby was rather small (and it was just about the only place the Wi-Fi worked) but the hallways were clean and nicely decorated. It was built in 2007 and had central air. My opinion changed a bit when we saw our room. Mr. M stayed at this hotel in the past so I’m not sure how he could have thought Tokyo Star was a shoebox. Our room was the smallest hotel room that I have ever seen in my life. It made a U.S. Motel Six (http://www.motel6.com/) look like a suite. When the door to the room is open, it practically touched the bed. The double bed took up about two thirds of the room. There was a small refrigerator that occupied most of the remaining space that was outside the arc of the door. The only spot you could stand was in this area reserved for the open door. Two people could not move about at the same time. If you wanted to stir, the other person would have to do a little dance first. We called this the “Zirka Shuffle”.  I’m certain that I have brothers who have walk-in closets that were bigger than this room. The bath room was also undersized. When you step inside, the shower is directly in front of you with the toilet near your right elbow and the sink by your left. I believe that we also had satellite TV. I can’t remember because we didn’t turn it on. There was a free breakfast but it was really just a “packaged meal” that included a juice box, yogurt and some wafer cookies. The hotel did not have a restaurant and it seemed like the Americano Coffee shop was our first stop every day.

In retrospect, Zirka wasn’t so bad. It was very small but you get what you paid for. I think in the future I will try to get the one bedroom at The Babushka Grand Hostel. 

Posted by John