In front of the barricade which blocks access to the sublime opera house in Odessa, the soldier, his wife and his daughter give each other a huge, long hug. When they part reluctantly, the soldier humorously pats his companion’s buttocks.
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Scene from the daily life of a city still at peace, but already ready for war, which oscillates between the expectation of a Russian attack, announced several times, and the sweetness and lightness of the beginning of spring on “the pearl of the Black Sea”.
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Still spared the horrors of war in the north and east, Odessa seems suspended.
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You have to show your credentials to access the historic center, bristling with sandbags, iron beams welded in a cross, and where tanks are posted at street intersections.
The military and the municipality organize visits for the press, always duly thanked for coming to “show the world what is happening here”.
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Chaperoned by two soldiers, the journalists are shown what they can or cannot film, but the atmosphere remains relaxed.
Past the first barricades, graffiti in yellow and blue – the colors of Ukraine – painted on a concrete block sets the tone: “freedom-equality-fraternity”, in French in the text.
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The beautiful center of Odessa, a city founded at the end of the 18th century by the Russian Empress Catherine II and the French Duke de Richelieu, bustles with people in times of peace, with its trendy cafes, its luxurious “Hôtel de Paris”, its breathtaking view of the port and of course the 192 steps of the Potemkin staircase descending to the port.
“Warning! Alert, stay safe”. Surreal in the silence, the loudspeaker of the funicular announces possible air raids at regular intervals. A few shots are sometimes heard from the harbor side.
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Dominating the stairs, the vision of the statue of the Duke of Richelieu, completely covered in sandbags, has gone around the world.
That of Catherine II, more in height and less exposed, has for all protection only a Ukrainian flag.
Lioudmila, a very elegant old lady with cheeky lipstick, returns home. She has always lived here. “Our beautiful Odessa,” she said, looking apologetically at the empty, barricaded streets. “I don’t know if there is another city like this in the world. But thank God we hold on! Everyone holds on!”
“It hurts to see our historical heritage covered with sandbags and barricades, but we are ready”, adds Diana Kraïnova, the young and smiling soldier in charge of the press.
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A few streets away, Maria, a tiny sixty-year-old carrying large plastic bags full of groceries on each arm, hurries to her building, the entrance to which is barricaded with tires installed by residents. “I’ve lived all my life here, it’s terrible to see that,” she says before slipping away.
And suddenly, without warning, here is the mayor of Odessa, Gennadiy Troukhanov, coming out of a series of meetings, accompanied by a few officials.
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Born in Odessa and mayor of the city since 2014, re-elected in 2020, the controversial city councilor – his name had been cited in the Panama papers on thousands of personalities suspected of tax evasion and money laundering – willingly stops to talk to journalists.
“I never thought I’d see something like this, see the duke covered in sandbags,” he says.
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“We had rehabilitation plans for the city center, and here we are thinking about the war. It’s nightmarish, it doesn’t make sense,” he said, before repeating, like everyone else, that Odessa is “ready” against the Russians.
“The heroic cities of Mykolaiv and Kherson (east of Odessa) stand against the army of the aggressor, this gave us 21 days to prepare, build barricades, provide food, medicine, and make our city an impregnable fortress”, he assures.
First port of Ukraine on the Black Sea, Odessa, a million inhabitants before the war (but more than 100,000 people have already fled, according to the municipality), is a strategic and symbolic target for the Russians.
Reference-www.tvanouvelles.ca