IN NORMAL TIMES, THE PORT OF ODESA is best seen from the spectacular colonnaded belvedere of Vorontsev’s Palace, high above the Black Sea. But these are not normal times. Soldiers patrol there, while razor wire fends off visitors from any point offering a view of the ships and cranes used for the export of Ukrainian grain.
In the nearby Taras Shevchenko Park, a stone column marks the spot where Alexander II of Russia visited in 1875. The park originally bore his name, before it was renamed in 1954 after the painter and poet regarded as the father of Ukrainian literature. It stands on the site of a minor Ottoman military outpost, Khadjibey, that was captured in 1792 by the forces of Alexander’s great-grandmother, Catherine the Great.
At the suggestion of one of her generals, she decreed the foundation of a city here. She chose a name, Odessos, after Odysseus, but decided it should have a feminine form, Odessa, for a city founded by a woman.
Even the busking accordionist wears a tracksuit in the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag
A statue of Catherine now
