I decided to stay at the Passage Hotel. From the outside it looked lovely, baroque architecture, lots of statues, filigree ironwork on the balconies, pigeons on the television aerials. The girl on the desk was honest.
'There is no hot water.'
'Do you have a room though?'
'Ýes, but there's still no water.'
'Do I get a discount because there's no hot water?'
'Do you want the room or not?'
It was actually hot enough in the room to fry an egg on the tv (which was, quite frankly, the only thing it could have been used for as there was only a fuzzy black and white picture) and the lack of hot water didn't matter that first day. After rescuing a spider from the bath and flushing the rest of the dead insects down the plughole, I had a shower and then moseyed on out to see what Odessa had to offer.
The first thing it had to offer was a Dutch cafe that did proper breakfast. Omelette! Toast!! Real coffee!!! I thought I'd died and gone to Groningen. Breakfast here became a ritual and set me up for the day and I was very grateful. The cafe was also the scene of a strange incident. As I was downing my second coffee, a man came in: bearded, oldish, dressed in black t-shirt and jeans. A few minutes later he went out. Then he came back in again with a woman. Then they both went out. A few minutes later they came back in again. This time they sat down and ordered. The woman got aq glass of ice into which she pured water from a bottle she had in her bag. The bloke spent the time on the phone. When his soup came, he played with it for a minute, then called the girl over. She removed the soup and returned it shortly after, now steaming. This seemed to satisfy him for a minute. Then he called her over again. Holding up a bread roll - and at one point bouncing it on the table so that she could see it wasn't fresh - he had another go, complaining about the bread. There was also something wrong with his salad but I didn't understand what. Finally, with a wave of an ID card, he called for what I can only assume was the complaints book and spent several minutes writing before signing it off with a big flourish. Then, not yet done, he asked for the phone number of the establishment which was duly brough to him. He phoned the number. The phone behind the bar rang. The girl picked it up. He looked across to see her talking to him on the phone. He lost his rag completely, left his own number and firm instructions that the owner was to call him first thing in the morning and apologise for the poor level of borsch, bread, salad and service. With that he left, the woman followed. I didn't notice when she came in if she was wearing them, but when she left, she had on a pair of black leather strangler's gloves...
Odessa's beaches were not the miles of golden sand I'd heard they were, although I didn't, I must admit, spend the hour on the tram going 5km out of town to find them. I made do with the lightly littered local beach, in the shadow of the container terminal and a direct stopping-off point for Odessa's sewage. No wonder the Russians sunbathe standing up, it's so they can't smell the stink from the water. How anyone could swim in the water is beyond me, but swim they do, without even face masks. Or an ambulance standing by.
Wednesday 1 June was Children's Day and was celebrated by a parade through the town. This consisted of several groups of kids from school or church groups, some older youth dressed in traditional costume, stiltwalkers, a couple of bands (who didn't actually play anything), some thin-as-a-rake bellydancers, four scruffy men on big motorbikes, a pony and trap and... a llama. Everyone made they're way to the front of the Pushkin museum where a stage had been set up and various dances and groups were singing and playing. Instead of watching this, I decided to go and try to buy a phonecard...
What is it with post office staff? On this front, Odessa is as Russian as Volgograd, but even more ignorant. Having failed to buy a card at the main post office, due to a queue of two people, neither of whom seemed to be doing anything except block the window, I went back to the smaller post office I'd used the day before to get stamps. I asked at a window and was pointed along to the next window where two girls sat staring into space. Before I even said anything the girl behind the copunter looked up and just said, loudly, 'No.' I smiled in that I-am-foreign-and-do-not-believe-you way, and asked for the card. This time she almost screamed 'No' and I felt my last thread of patience with the Russians fray. 'Where?' I asked. That brought on a torrent of abuse, containing one word I understood - English. To be spoken like that by anyone is bad enough, but when it's a jobsworth teenager... The thread snapped. Ýou are incredibly f****** rude' was the only thing I could come up with, but I said it loud enough for the whole of the post office to fall into a deathly silence. You could have heard a fly fart. When I looked round, a young bloke was grinning, which made me shrug at him. 'They've finished for the day,' he explained. He then helped me to buy a card from the other two women - one of whom gave the young girl a talking to and got a similar response to the one I'd got - and when I said thank you, both smiled. The card I bought won't work in any phone I have tried it in, neither can I use it at the post office call centre. Ideas for revenge can be sent via the normal channels...
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