Searching for kitsch from Odessa to Yalta...

While I will probably get whisked away in a black BMW with tinted windows for writing this, Odessa is a very Mafia-filled town. Despite my initial excitement, I was initially disappointed with the blocks of concrete littering the suburbs as we drove into town. What I'm beginning to realize about all these former-Soviet towns is that many of the concrete apartment buildings aren't just abandoned - more are going up, and I realize that's because they a.) need more housing and b.) probably don't know how to build anything else...

But our hotel room in Odessa had a fascinating view - the old turn-of-the-century railway station, a gold-painted onion-domed church, and then the crumbling remnants of collapsed concrete apartment buildings... And more was yet to come. Odessa's beaches are filled with kitsch - old ladies with scales to weigh yourself, tacky plastic palm trees along the beach, random cemented Greek columns. On the Potemkin steps, one is chased by people carrying monkeys, pythons and cute, furry rabbits in the hopes that you will pay for the pleasure of taking a photo with said animal. And a few blocks away, there are uber-high end haute couture shops, fancy French restaraunts, beautiful sidewalk cafes under leafy trees... The food was exquisite, the statues interesting (many pro-Soviet, one notable one of a Cossack with his horse), and the Potemkin steps almost as breathtaking as I hoped (the only thing taking away from that experience was the view of the Soviet concrete that one now enjoys from the Steps).

The stories are interesting. Odessa is built on catacombs - as they built houses, they pulled out limestone from underneath (no, really underneath) the lots they were building on. For those of us coming from earthquake-prone territory (and Odessa has had its share of seismic activity), this seems like a really bad idea. The result has been a building limit of four stories. A building limit that apparently does not apply to Soviet concrete...

But in the catacombs, we took the most fascinating tour of the trip so far. During WWII, the partisans based themselves out of a set of catacombs outside of Odessa - they lived there for years, communicating with people through notes sent in pails out of wells, and the walls are filled with interesting stories of great heroism amidst great tragedy. A moving experience.

From Odessa, we took the night train to Simferopol, and then drove down to Yalta this morning. The night train was kind of fun - bumpy, loud and our carriage had several loud snorers, but it was fun. Lots of alcohol (leftovers from the Moldovan wine cellars, where everyone was given two bottles at the end of the tour! i'm still left with one... for the Kiev sleeper train, i guess), and dinner of bread and cheese! Not too much drama, except for one of the older ladies who drank far too many G&T's and was rather ill... Us younger folk were the most sober ones on the train, i think.

As for Yalta, if I thought that Odessa was a little kitschy, Yalta is full-on super-kitsch. There are all the horrid face cut-outs to take your photo in, and several dress-up in costume and get your picture taken. You can have your picture taken in a crinoline on a Romanov-inspired throne, or in leather on a (possibly real?) Harley Davidson with an American flag in the background. I'm aiming for the crinoline...

We took a boat tour around to Swallow's Nest - a fantasy castle built on a cliff in 1912 that graces the Ukraine guide books. It looks lovely from the distance, but rather tacky (probably worse than Disneyland) up close. It is also filled with animal-carrying photo opportunists. Instead of the pythons and monkeys, though, these ones had hawks and peacocks. I resisted the temptation to take a photo with my mother with a giant peacock on her shoulder, tempting as it was.

All the best - thanks for the comments, guys - I wish you were all here to enjoy the kitsch!