Odessa

Odessa /

Odessa is a charming 19th century city that was largely untouched by World War II. Established and built by Catherine the Great after she grabbed the land at the end of the 18th century, it is a feast of 19th century masterpieces, including its crown jewel – the Opera House – built in the 1880s.

We flew on Turkish Airlines from Istanbul, a brief snap of a trip directly northeast across the Black Sea. In the hour flight Turkish Airlines managed to serve us an entire meal, including chocolate mousse, plus drinks. On a flight last week in the United States on Southwest Airlines, the flight crew declared there was insufficient time to serve anything (on a longer flight) and then set about congratulating the crew for flying us into New York fully ten hours late.

There’s a reason why we chose non-American flagged airlines.

The Odessa airport is 1950s functional. Think Greyhound bus terminal in the United States, the kind torn down ten or fifteen years ago. But it was fast, and it was efficient. We were through customs quickly, and a clerk lurked whom actually demanded and then checks out luggage check tickets to insure no on stole our luggage. We liked the Ukrainians immediately.

We were shipping out on a Viking River cruise ship named the Lomonosov which was docked just across a busy street from the famous Potemkin Steps (once two-hundred steps, but now a mere 192 after the adjacent road was widened and heightened (good-bye eight steps). Here the famous “Battleship Potemkin”(1926) movie was shot, and here also was the beginning of the 1905 Russian uprising. Supposedly Russian troops fired on and killed a number of unarmed innocent citizens here, but these days it is said that didn’t happen.

We had low hopes for the Lomonosov, named for a Russian poet. The rooms, at 90-square feet, are smaller than a gulag cell. The ship was built for the recreation of Communist party officials in the 1970s and, we rightly anticipated, would have a cold war feel. Still, we wanted to get to the Black Sea before the heavy crush of westerners find the place (as they will when the Olympics arrive in Sochi in 2014) so it was either sail on this ship (where they would speak English and serve food that might be edible) or book ourselves across the Black Sea on ferries. Our search for cruise ships sailing from Istanbul turned up nothing, but it develops we did not search deeply enough. There are, we were assured, a number of western ships putting around the Black Sea. That just means we’ll probably be back.

Viking has been chopping back on amenities at a rapid pace. So, while a couple of years ago, all of the land tours were included, they have now begun selling the best tours while motoring around everyone on a single tour. There’s little choice but to pay them the extra money unless – as some of our co-passengers were – you are exceptionally adventurous and willing.

A surprise was how many were on board from the United States who have ties to the Ukraine, Odessa and Kiev. There’s a reason why Brighton Beach in New York City is known as “Little Odessa”. Once having a large Jewish settlement, Odessa was the site of not one but two pogroms in the 20th century that largely wiped out the entire Jewish community in Odessa.

My efforts to find the train station failed. On my own in the sweltering weather I set out using the Opera House but took the wrong street. I intended to walk until I found a McDonald’s, but, of course, I never found it. Parched and fearing my energy was lagging too low, I turned back and returned to the ship.

I was determined to climb up and down the Potemkin Steps, and it was surprisingly easy. I cruised up them two-at-a-time that was good for my morale. The following morning it did not seem as great an idea as it had at the time. I also rode up and down on the tram that runs along side the steps for the less venturesome. The lines for the tram, which carries no more than 15 and in reality quite a few less is that it best carries only about 10 people. A man, straight out of central casting, drives the tram – and when I greeted him saying hello, he simply stared at me. He would do well in Moscow where a few times I got the same reaction. The tram moves slowly, but those attempting to get on the tram do not. Expect pushing and shoving, and line cutting, especially by large older women with large shopping bags. I was amused.

The Lomonosov set out on the Black Sea about 9:30pm and ran for a time along the coast where lights could be seen. By midnight the ship was alone on the Black Sea and, except for an occasional ship, in the distance, we were alone. The sea was so smooth that it was unclear we were moving (but we were).

The ship has two dreary dining rooms, and the service – slow – is equally bad in either. After I got sick – and remained sick for weeks – on the St Petersburg-Moscow trip with these guys last November, I decided to eat carefully and study the food before I eat it. I advise you to do the same.

But the crew is nice and our tour guide, a woman, age 30, from Sevastopol, is downright lovable. Sevastopol was a closed military cit until 1996. It was a Soviet military base, and he father was a naval engineer. He grandfather also was in the Soviet navy. When the Cold War ended in 1990, her father immediately lost his job and she said they became very poor. Finding food was a problem and she wore the same jeans for 5 years – from age 10 to 15. Because she gained very little weight during that time she said it worked out, more or less.

I asked her if she preferred Soviet or current times. She dithered, finally saying there was much that was better under the Soviets. Sevastopol was sparkling clean and fresh, and is now dirty. Still there were many things from each era she likes – she would like to take the best from each of these eras. This is an attitude we found in Russia as well. The people are conflicted, and with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990 they have suffered.
I commonly ask my fellow travelers if they have visited the place where we are before. We have a fair number of travelers who are “place collectors” regaling you with all of the places they have been in an attempted one-up-mans-ship game. I find the game tedious since usually they know nothing about the people or the places they have visited – they are merely coloring in the map and, generally being people on toward the end of their lives, seem to be making their lives travel, having few if any meaningful relationships in their real lives.

But there are also some really interesting people. A banker from Canada is very smart and we have chatted about what the economy likely will look like in the next 5 to 10 years. His view confirms mine – invest in large caps and think in terms of 2015 or 2020 and you will make a fortune. The 21st century economically will be stupendous since we’ve become a world economy instead of a North American centered economy. Once we learn how to run this new world economy, and smooth things, out, we’re all going to get a lot richer, especially the Americans.

One other passenger, when we asked him if he had been to Istanbul, replied that he had been on his way here but had been diverted a few years ago to Rhodes instead. Why? We asked. “Someone blew up a mosque in Istanbul.” They did what?

Istanbul / Blue Mosque & Hagia Sophia

Istanbul, Turkey
August 3, 2010

Today we would re-visit some old haunts and have a new look. The Blue Mosque is undergoing an extensive renovation, a process well underway when we visited Istanbul in 2009. Hagia Sophia, the ancient mosque from the 6th century, is an easy walk nearby. The vanished Roman hippodrome was worth a walk around, if only to imagine to watch chariots race here before crowds of 20,000 people (a substantial figure in Roman times, but one that pales alongside what sporting events draw today).

We have had a guide. He rivals the worse we have ever had. Ask him a question and it appears he is mentally translating it into his native language while he answers. A question as to whether the Bosphorus freezes in winter careens off into a discussion of airline schedules and wanders, eventually into icebergs in the Dardenelles in 1954. A nearby fellow traveler answers the question of whether the Marmara Sea is salt or fresh. It is brackish, a combination of both.

Still, as challenged as our guide is, he at least demonstrates some knwoledge of English. On Saipan, the worse guide we have ever seen, our guide never spoke and, we decided, had no idea what we were saying either. Nonetheless, our Istanbul guide manage to kill fully two-thirds of the planned trips which has to be a record somewhere.

As happened yesterday, by setting out early we have avoided the more pressing crowds. This was especially true at the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, but as the morning wore on the crowds built as did the traffic. Mid-day in Istanbul traffic approaches gridlock.

The carpet guys
As expected, eventually we were hauled to a place where they had restrooms, drinks and — what a surprise — someone’s brother-in-law hawking over-priced goods. In this case it was carpet.

As the level of the floor rose under the weight of carpet after carpet, a woman labored in the corner weaving. When it became clear that the alert and aggressive guy assigned to help us re-carpet one of our houses was getting nowhere, an older much more mellow man siddled up and we began chatting. I asked him to show me exactly why this carpet was better than that. Soon we were on our hands-and-knees and he was showing me the different in ties in carpet, and eventually we were fingering the most expensive carpet on the floor, a pure silk carpet priced at $13,000 which he said has 1,200 ties per inch.

Is this hand-woven, I asked. Indeed it is, he said. I wondered how long it takes someone to weave this carpet which was 3′ x 5′. He replied to takes 13 to 16 months.

How long does it take someone to achieve the skill to do such cdetailed work? He replied that young wmen begin at the age of 10 or 12 and become jouneymen at carpetmaking by age 16. Around the age of 20 they become masters at it, assuming they have the inclination and skill. By the age of 40, they are done because it requires such perfect eyesight.

What if I wished to have a carpet of 10′ x15′, I asked. He could deliver such a carpet in six years, he replied, but he said he does have something in the back I might like. He smiled. I smiled.

And the warranty for such a carpet? “It was never wear out — if you descendants have any problems, we say with confience you may advise them to return it in 500 years. It will show no wear.”

Well. Interesting. And what do I know? A silk carpet never wears out?

In the bazaar, which says it is the oldest in the world, we drifted from small shop to small shop looking at the knockoffs and fakes. Istanbul can be a challenge for those with allergies.

Smoke is everywhere and when you think you have stepped out of the line of it, someone lights up behind you and your clean air is befouled. There can also be the sensitive issue of body odor. Much as we wished to hear what our guide said, we watched the way the wind was blowing because as the days went by , he appeared to attempt to mute his smell with stronger perfumes rather than bathing. He found a myriad of ways to be un-endearing — so perhaps it was best that he killed all so many of the promised tours?

Header: One of many designs found in the Blue Mosque. Headers, once used, are archived in Design/ Header Photographs to be viewed again.

Istanbul / Topkapi Palace

Istanbul, Turkey
August 2, 2010

Comfortably settled in on the Twelfth Floor of the opulent Conrad Hotel in Istanbul, and gradually overcoming a ferocious case of jetlag, we are dining at the Executive Lounge on the top floor while overlooking ships play bumper cars in the Bosphorus.

We have been joined by other eleven other travelers who are spending four days here before flying on with us to Odessa, Ukraine, late Wednesday afternoon. They are an amiable if unadverturous group. A total of six tours including trips to the spice market and a leisurely trip the length of the Bosphorous from the Black Sea to Istanbul have been canceled due to lack of interest. Of the six tours, now only two remain — one to Topkapi Palace which took place today. And the other on Tuesday morning to Hagria Sophia and the Blue Mosque.

We shall forage on our own, as we did this evening taking a ferry across from Europe to the Asian side of Istanbul, a trip of less than fifteen minutes, but one which afforded a stunning later afternoon view of the Golden Horn, Topkapi and European Istanbul. Once in Asia, as we always do, we strolled the street markets until finding a grocery, an internet cafe and other street vendors. Once in Asian Istanbul we were far from the tourists and into the pulsing city busy with its day-to-day affairs.

Istanbul is, like many place,exploding in population. From 3-million a few years ago the city now is at least 13-million and some believe may be approaching 17-million.

We are returning to Istanbul for the second time in as many years. In April 2009 we harboured here for a day while on the Cunard Queen Victoria. We saw the highlights, but the city was jammed and the ship had arrived late dumping its passengers into the malestrom of the middle of the day. This time we set out early and long before the tourists stormed Topkapi we were already heading back for our hotel.

The Palace, one of several in the city, is both grand and interesting. Treasures from the Ottoman Empire are on view here, and well worth a look, even if, as is often the case, the lines are long and slow-moving. There is some, but not much, about the history of the Empire which stretched from the 14th century to the end of World War I in 1918.

Header — Istanbul. Asia on the right; Europe on the left and under the bridge on up the Bosphorus, The Black Sea. A former header which is a similar view at night may be found in pages at top under “Design / Former Headers”

New York City to Istanbul & The Black Sea

New York City to Istanbul, Turkey
at the western edge of The Black Sea
August 1, 2010

A lot of history happened on the Black Sea, including a lot that affects the world today — and a lot more is heading our way in the new few years as the Olympics come to call.

At Yalta in February 1945 the leaders of the western alliance, on the verge of defeating Hitler/The Third Reich and ending World War II (which did end in May 1945) carved up the world making decisions which some believe led to the Cold War (1945-1989) and to the decades long post World War II standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Black Sea has been a playground and an amiable place for relaxation for centuries but is imperfectly known — when known at all — in the west. Nor is the Black Sea an easy place to get to for less adventurous westerners, although to get to the Black Sea’s western edge, at Istanbul, is quite easy. From Istanbul on, however, east onto the sea itself, it gets trickier. Language can be a challenge. Tours for westerners are sparse. Accomodations can be spartan.

Come along anyway and we’ll have a look.

On the night of July 31, 2010, we flew from New York directly to Istanbul non-stop.

Supposedly this is a 10 hour 15 minutes flight, but the airlines cook a lot of extra time into their schedules these days. Leaving JFK/New York fully half an hour late, we touched down in IST/Istanbul fully 45 minutes early.

Summer may be the time to go if you’re looking to get bumped.

On our flight an increasingly desperate gate clerk needed three volunteers to give up their seats. It did not go well. She went from $500 (“Delta Dollars”, not real money) to eventually offering $800, plus a night in New York in a hotel, a seat on the first flight out in the morning and rides to and from the overnight hotel in New York.

Visas / Turkey and Ukraine

Turkish Visas are as easy and painless as it gets. As you pass through customs you are directed to a line where you pony up $20 America, they eye you briefly (“whoa, that guy looks sleep deprived”) and then place the Visa Stamp in your passport. Welcome to Turkey. Go spend some money in our country.

Ukraine is even easier. No Visa. Just get off the plane. Keep moving.

When the Olympics get to Sochi in a few years you’re going to want to know a lot more — and by then it’ll probably be a much easier place to get to.

Header — Istanbul. Asia on the right; Europe on the left and under the bridge on up the Bosporus, The Black Sea. A similar view at night may be found in pages at top under “former headers” which is this blog’s pasture for retired geriatric headers — and where this header may have already been sent.