Odessa Warnings Or Dangers

It's common knowledge that the municipal tap water is not for drinking.
It is always better to buy and drink only mineral water in Odessa.
It is available as still water and as gas water.
Still water usually has light blue caps on the bottle ("Bonaqua"), whereas gas water bottles have dark blue caps...
Besides, when traveling in overcrowded public transport watch your bags and pockets.
Never put your wallet into the back pocket of your jeans!
The Odessa pickpockets tend to be very inventive and skilful. Please do not be in two minds about that...

I was stopped by the police when walking home from a bar around 2 am last night. They were trying to extort a bribe from me with a bull *** story and wanting to see my passport. They didn't speak much English and with me not speaking much Russian, with hindsight I think that helped me. One of the 2 started getting angry when I couldn't understand what he was saying. I did though understand him saying, 'monay' and pointing to where my wallet was but I still didn't hand any over. Wankers.

I mentioned this to someone in Ukraine later in my trip and was given the following advice:-

* Never hand over your passport to the Ukrainian police. Once they have that then they are completely in control of you

* Always present a persona of being confident and not of being weak

* If it comes to it, threaten to report them to the embassy of your nation

There is a useful feature on handling corrupt police looking for bribes on the Chisinau page of VT

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/Moldova/Municipiul_Chisinau/Chisinau-455261/Warnings_or_Dangers-Chisinau-TG-C-1.html

So many of the female population of 0dessa are advertising online on the internet, seeking a foreign 'moosh' (husband) & in general, Russian-speaking girls are less than complimentary about their menfolk - so what is the truth - are they really the mommy's boys they are reputed to be?
Having spent some time in the city & met a broad range of folk in differing circumstances, I would have to conclude that as with everything else in this bi-polar place of contradictions - yes...& NO!
As with every other aspect of this idionsyncratic city, 0dessa's menfolk are either above reasonable criticism by any girl who is not 'fafa-ee-feefa' (spoilt perfectionist) or otherwise, they truly are as dire as is told...
0dessa is something of a 'little Italy' - a matriachal bastion, where boys especially are spoilt rotten by doting aunts, grannies , & mothers, & never come close to reaching any meaningful adulthood. Middle-aged 'shlyondri' (wannabe playboys) will stay up into the early hours, then return from their vodka binges & be cooked a full dinner by a mother who is quite content with such behaviour as long as her precious son never leaves the nest...
This was the case with a family who invited me back to 0dessa, not having warned me beforehand that their home had been taken over by their son's exploiting friends, who also ended a nights drinking by 'crashing' on their home for food & somewhere to sleep. 0n the day I returned to 0dessa, December 2009, I spent it sharing a room with an inanimate bundle of blankets, 'alfonsing' on the sofa. 0nly a turtle-head (I use the term ambiguously) emerged, until dusk, once upon this guest ceased sucking his thumb long enough to insult me, & demand from a female visitor that he be given a painkiller for his 'koomareet' (narcotic hangover). This 'moodaushlyopi' (overgrown baby) actually transpired to be all of 36...
Such pathetic examples of manhood are all too typical of 0dessite's in trousers, so is it any wonder that any self-respecting female should aspire elsewhere for a man?
That considered, there are many well-educated, hard-working, courteous & mature males in the city, & many of them speak English, for their own aspirations to leave their hometown for better prospects. The irony of this is that thay tend to be the single males - & they explain to me that it is impossible to find a match in 0dessa because the potential ones are too preoccupied with what is available online from abroad....
This surely tells the real truth about the 'dyevooshkee' advertising themselves on the internet, because if they bothered to look in their own neighbourhood, there are plenty of acceptable men available, but they are those regarded as being 'syeriy' (grey = boring) by the local 0dessite females, who, in my experience, are themselves immature & club-centric. All they want to do in life is go to nightclubs & the beach, though they complain bitterly if their menfolk are equally unsubstantial in their interests...
They are also quite spoilt, out of proportion to their apparently impoverished backgrounds, & really only judge a man by the size of his wallet, so they need to stop complaining & learn a universal truth - 'like attracts like'...

Ukraine is notorious as 'the Thailand of Europe' - a short haul alternative for the sex tourist - & the capitol of this traderoute is 0dessa. This port city is also the pivot of the white slave trade in Europe, where up to 10 000 girls per year are estimated to be exported on the ferry to Turkey, then sold on to brothel keepers. Many of those who end up in this chain of exploitation, originate from Moldova, via Tiraspol - officially the poorest place in all Europe, & only 2 hours from 0dessa.
If you believe the propaganda, all 0dessa girls are nympho's & available for as little as a shandy - 'peeva-es-leemonom' - if you ever need to order 1 - but, if you have to be gullible to believe such stuff. Age of consent is 14 - younger are said to be available for those willing to pay & the authorities turn a blind eye, so investigative reporters have exposed...
The record reflects that these things do happen, but I would like to make a blatant point about all the sordid accusations made about 0dessa - whatever does go on behind closed doors in this sleepless city - it is not blatant & it does go on behind closed doors...
0dessa is NOT 'the poor man's Bangkok' - notorious for its street selling of seedy, sexy clubs in the face of any tourist who knows where to look - London has its Soho; Hamburg has its Reeperbahn, but 0dessa?
I have walked all its main streets & many of its secretive side alleys, peered into many secluded courtyards; sometimes collecting drinking water, sometimes shopping, sometimes sightseeing, sometimes just curious, sometimes completely lost - what did I see to raise an eyebrow, shock, or arouse?
NOWT! But for fly-posted adverts for premises offering the visitor a sexy massage, lapdance or cabaret, but these are invites for those interested in such - NOT blatant incularisation of the passerby. If those things are your wish to receive in 0dessa, then it is there below the surface, & as 'the Duck' in Alice in Wonderland observed; when he looked for worms, he tended to find worms...
I am not obtuse to think that as with the crime in 0dessa, because I have not witnessed it myself, it does not exist - nasty stuff does occur in this desperate metropolis, like it does in all urban concentrations of humanity. But, whatever does go down in this paradoxical place of extremes, it does so discreetly - & that is some 'paradoks' for a city as indiscreet as 0dessa...

The first time I crossed the border into Ukraine I felt like I was travelling back in time - the rural scene had changed little from the rustic peasant environment depicted by Peter Brueghel. For anybody who wants to see countryside untouched by progress, where 'horsepower' is literally as well as tractor applied, then 'the new Ukraine' is as good as anywhere in eastern Europe to go...
Russian & Slavic folk are known for their superstitious nature & it is one of the greatest paradoxes of the former Soviet Union, that when the Berlin Wall fell, the first things to be resurrected were the old beliefs. Folk flocked back to church as if 'the opiate of the proletariat' was an addiction as morbid as ever, despite 7 decades of cold turkey...
Not only was the 'Pravoslavnauvau' (0rthodox) Church resurrected from Soviet secular excommunication, so too were the old folk beliefs that in the west had been revised into the so-called 'new age', that in truth, were anything, but new! 0dessa's local news service has featured reports made in the city during both of my last visits, revealing how demand for supply of occult practitioners has become a profitable business...
The investiagators filmed at the premises of various of these black magi, all men, with their faces obscured by marks, so appearing like 'the phantom of the opera'. All their paying clients were women, intent on revenge on a romantic rival, who was represented by a poppet, which, depending on the occultist, was stabbed with pins, melted in a candle flame, or crushed & decapitated...
Chilling viewing it was, & for a while afterwards I walked the streets of 0dessa feeling like Sergeant Howie in THE WICKER MAN - NOT that I believe in the efficacy of these dark artes, but it is disturbing enough to consider that those around me still do. If there was a benefit of Soviet ideology, it was the concerted attempt to educate everybody into 'scientific thinking' - obviously the words of wisdom fell upon deaf ears & Ukraine remains a culture still as submerged in old age superstitions & prejudices, as it was before the 0ctober Revolution...
This does not bode well for Ukraine's future - even those young enough to know better, cling to ancient superstitious thinking, blaming all their problems onto neighbours or westerners - turning to anti-diluvian belief systems to exonnerate them from contributing to raise Ukraine to what a visitor expects from a modern European culture...

1 of the conspicuous differences I noticed on my fourth visit to 0dessa, January 2011 - were the apparent absence of street folk in this city of an estimated 10 000 homeless. 0nly a year had passed since I last pitied them on the tundra-esque streets, yet, despite another 5 weeks spent in the same area of the city in similar degrees of cold, I did not witness 1 such of these, out-of-time from a Peter Bueghel painting, 0dessites - begging the obvious ? - what has become of them?
It is something of a sinister mystery, considering Ukraine's chronic record of missing folk, not to mention its dark history, even in recent decades, of politically purposeful famines & mass disappearances. Perhaps these desperate looking street people, who were such a feature only a year previously, had succumbed to the overnight cold of -10 'gradoosa' - & lower in 2011
0r, perhaps they were sheltering beneath this city that is ina precarious stste of subsidence, partly because of the network of catacombs over which it is built. During the Patriotic War, the partisans kept up their resistance to the Nazis, by going underground & regrouping beneath the city. It is known that these subterranean caverns are still exploited by those who find themselves otherwise shelterless, in this paradoxical place of former Soviet idealism, where 'the welfare state' - so often assumed to be a Marxist idea, never truly existed outside the theory textbooks...
1 unforgettable character, who chose to beg outside the courtyard entrance where I was living, bore an uncanny resemblance to Kostoyed, the Klaus Kinski character in DOCTOR ZHIVAGO - complete with bulging, bloodshot eyes, flowing hair, & Bolshevik 'zheenyel' (greatcoat)...
It occurred to me then, that a wannabe Goth/horror filmmaker, on a budget, could come to 0dessa & assemble the entire cast from the folk on the streets, for so many looked like extras from THE NAME OF THE ROSE!

Ukraine has a Third World level of road casualties, due in no small part to the national preference for vodka...
As with everything in 0dessa, a city of extremes, drivers either pussyfoot over the cobblestoned, tram-lined, potholed streets, or they crack on as if on a rally stage. 0nly those in the black, with smoked glass, German limo's, disregard red lights & pedestrian crossings - the worst offenders for this being the few 2-wheeled road users, who mount kerbs on their scooters to take short cuts through the traffic...
Ukraine is very much a country where the man is expected to be behind the wheel, & few single girls can afford a car - a Russian-speaking idiom is that; "to give a woman a car, is like handing a grenade to a monkey!"
The irony of this, is that considering the dreadful carnage on Ukrainian roads, of battlefield proportions, as with warfare, those responsible for the casualties are 99% male...
Something in common with my own country is that the greatest nuisance & danger to the pedestrian is caused by inconsiderate parking, despite the high kerbs that characterise old 0dessa. Motorists still manage to mount them & turn otherwise generous pavements into places where the walker is dodging in & out of bumpers. A crackdown has been launched by the local 'Darozhna-Transportnoi Processhyestveei' - road traffic police, to deter this activity, by imposing 1700 Grivna 'stayanka shtraf' (parking penalty fines) on offenders. Quite a ddeterrent, considering this is greater than the value of the old Lada's, causing the problem...

0dessa - city I love to HATE & hate to LOVE - in such equal measure, that it becomes addictive after a while. Some things never improve; others just get worse... This is my ultimate 'top10' most annoying things about 0dessa - graded according to how many times out of my 4 visits each has occurred - those that recur each time being closest to the top of the list...

1 - PAYPHONES - everywhere, but they do not work...
2 - POWER CUTS - up to 3 a day if you're unlucky...
3 - PARKING/TRIP HAZARDS ON PAVEMENTS - Lada's everywhere are bad enough, but plant pots put out to deter them are easier to fall over, especially in the dark...
4 - NO CHANGE GIVEN - 0dessite seller's only accept exact change...
5 - POTHOLES/MISSING DRAIN COVERS/CELLAR OPENINGS IN PAVEMENTS - still not fallen down any of these yet though...
6 - LITTER, LITTER, LITTER - & it only gets worse, despite all the sweeping...
7 - CROSSING ROADS - not easy when you're watching your feet because of missing drainage grids - & vodka & driving does not mix...
8 - HARDWATER/LIMESCALE IN PIPES - used as an excuse to turn off hotwater in August - bad idea!
9 - INFERIOR BUILDING STANDARDS - electrical fittings in rooms not properly secured & door locks might not be true with door jamb...
10 - AGGRESSIVE DOGS - but pets/courtyard watchdogs, not the strays, are those to be wary of...