This morning we are going to continue on to Odessa. The overnight train from Chernivsti to Odessa took 19 hours. It has to go over the hump of northern Moldova. We got into Odessa in the middle of the morning and easily found the TI which is not far from the train station. The TI staff went to work finding us a hotel for 750uah per night for four nights. I also asked for help finding records regarding my grandfather's birth and the village the family lived in before leaving for Romania. The TI director had been to the village and said nothing remains of German habitation and the old evangelical church now has a dome and is Orthodox. When I asked how to get to the hotel the TI director jumped up and said I'll take you. Amazing! It was a very convenient hotel just fifteen minutes walk to the Potemkin Steps. We spent a lot of time wandering around, strolling, really, and had many good visits with other tourists and local people. I spent about a half hour talking to one of the peddlars on the Steps. Odessa, or at least the old downtown is really geared towards tourism, especially towards Russian tourists. It also appears to be a very wealthy city.
Architectually, it is magnificent! Everywhere you look there is an architectural statement whether it is the opera house of an old brick building on the way to the bus station. It is a city we would go back to. There are two other TI offices near the downtown and we used one of them with great results. We found the In Your Pocket paper guide was the most helpful as well as the paper map the hotel gave us. Travel guides are out of date the day the day they printed, but they are good for general information. Everybody needs to see Odessa or Odesa. We are going north to Uman next.
Posted by
Colorado Springs
334 posts
We saw a huge difference in Odessa between 2003 and 2008, so I imagine it has continued to upgrade as it can (though the politics of Ukraine - and the graft - make it difficult). It is a beautiful old city - no hot water in the hotels in the summer, though. In one old hotel they brought us a big kettle and huge immersion water heater and ladle to rinse with - my husband said it was one of the best "showers" he had in Ukraine (I'm not so sure).
Posted by
OP
Genesee, ID
1840 posts
Karen, The difference you saw in the country has continued in the cities. Its hard telling when prosperity will sift down to the small farmers such as my wife's relatives are. We stayed in mostly newer or older upgraded hotels. All had modern showers and most had tubs. Three of them had new computerized showers that could have come with an instruction book. I had two years of Russian in college and used it for a while as a library cataloger. My wife taught herself the Ukranian alphabet. We concentrated on a few basic words such as dva peevo, dobri den, spaciba, chetiri noch, etc. We also had a Lonely Planet phrase book that was worth its weight. Wife also had an iPod Touch and could use the translator if WiFi was available. In Uman we stopped at a restaurant that had WiFi and ordered a pizza from the Ukranian menu. I came loaded with shrimp. My wife is very allergic to shell fish including shrimp. She got out the Touch, put in the phrase "I'm allergic to shrimp" and showed the translation to the waitress. She understood. We paid for it and ordered another. So, when are you going back?
Posted by
Colorado Springs
334 posts
In a few places we stayed with locals that we met at train stations - our daughter was actually better at working through that than her Ukrainian friend who was with us. It was quite an experience, but we were glad to help out a few individuals. Those places sometimes had Kolankas? (instant hot water) for kitchens and bathrooms. We were definitely trying to travel cheaply, so some places were really quite interesting - one place in Odessa had starched sheets with holes in them, but seemed clean - kind of scratchy to sleep on - ahh, the memories :-).