It is morning in Odesa, after a night yet again interrupted by air raid sirens and explosions - the huge blast of a Russian Kalibr cruise missile slamming into the city centre just before 2.45 in the morning, the echo of three more shot down in the turbulent skies above. Three people were killed this night, dozens more injured: apartments, offices, a McDonald’s, a science museum are burnt out, smashed up, the 100 year old polytechnic university opposite is entirely without its windows, the facade turned into a geometric pattern of empty rectangles. The smouldering wrecks of two cars are still in their parking spaces, police tape flapping around them, a mechanical digger alongside. There’s an eerie, echoing sound of lots of young people rhythmically sweeping up huge piles of broken glass. And next to all this destruction, a humanitarian aid office is still defiantly open - a cardboard notice taped to the window announcing a collection point for all sorts of things from bottled water to children’s clothes, to send to the flood victims in Kherson.
Two ladies sit watching the clean up at the University
I’m walking past with Alexey, a restaurateur and wine expert who lives just a few hundred yards away: the blast was incredibly close. This is the way he walks to work every day, one of the main roads into the centre of town. He had been discussing renting a space for a new cafe in one of the now burned out blocks. He waves his arm at the place where he took a culinary course in the building right next door. He is upset and angry and exhausted: there are too many nights and too many mornings like these.
We cross the street by a small Orthodox church which has also been wrecked - there are people inside carefully sifting through the broken shards of glass and lacquered wood: it’s hard to imagine a more apt metaphor of Russia’s apparent war strategy than this - a bombed out McDonald’s, across from a blast-damaged church. On my phone, a video pops up from one of our friends, a farmer who lives in the very block of flats which was hit. Luckily he wasn’t hurt but his home is a complete mess: he pans the camera round to show a mangled bicycle in his glass covered hallway - ‘I guess my morning bike ride is cancelled’, he says. The Ukrainian capacity for dark humour never ceases to amaze.
A man walking past the bomb damage
So too their determination: everyone must be so very traumatised and tired, but they get up in the morning and have strong coffee and go to work. As we carry on walking to one of his restaurants, Alexey says they simply have to keep going - keep providing jobs, paying people, feeding people - it’s their country, after all and there is no other choice. Working in hospitality isn’t easy at the best of times. Let alone this, the very worst of times. But then we get to the pizza restaurant, which is modern and fresh and full of light: and we stop talking about war for a moment, and talk about food. I get a plate of their trademark choux buns filled with salted caramel, pistachio raspberry - and a classic vanilla custard. That’s the one Alexey says he based on his grandmother’s recipe - along with a napoleon cake filled with many layers of creme pat. He tells me about the difference between napoleon cake recipes and why this one is his favourite. The choux buns, by the way, are delicious.
High five to the chefs who made these
I was going to write this post about our new project - together with my friends at the Bake for Ukraine nonprofit, we are buying a large mobile bakery and getting it on the road - to help supply fresh bread to people who haven’t had access to it for months. The giving of warm, fresh loaves of Ukrainian palyanytsya - the country’s iconic sourdough bread - is meant as an act of compassion and love.
But that will come next, for now it is the surreal noise of all those students sweeping up mounds of broken debris which remains in my head, the gaping holes where once were windows, the exhausted rescue worker sitting for a moment at a picnic table outside the bombed McDonald’s, the girl in the striped T-shirt heading back to the office which is collecting aid for Kherson, the heavy silence in a beautiful city after a night visited by death.
Another incredibly powerful piece of writing, Felicity. Thank you for sharing these updates and for the work you’re doing to communicate the dignity, strength and and determination of the Ukrainian people.
Gosh, this is such essential reading -- but also so beautifully expressed, Felicity. Thank you for sharing. I continue to be in awe of Ukrainians' sheer strength of character. And then to see that, in amongst this nightmare, they are turning out textbook-perfect choux... Wow. Inspiring, perspective-giving, and sobering.