0. Raise your hand…

Raise your hand, who has been recently to Odesa? Of course, I do not see my readers, but I know I do not see many hands either. I myself visited Odesa first time in my life in Mid-January 2023 and I have been living here since end of the February the same year.

During my first visit I had the impression of being (almost) the only tourist in town. Yes, there were foreigners there - aid workers (whom I could identify as such by the logos on their matching jackets), journalists (whom I myself chatted to in a local pub to find out, who were they), as well as a small handful of diplomats and staff members of international organizations (f. e. UN and its agencies), and a small number of foreign nationals, mainly business people, living here.

One of the latter, a good friend of mine, was the one to invite me to visit. After a short hesitation, listening to my friend describe me life without electricity and water, and telling me about the curfew that lasts from eleven o'clock p.m. until five in the morning, during which patrols are authorized to use live ammunition against offenders, the decision was quick.

I bought my ticket the day after deciding on going to Odesa and the flight was due to take place a week later. At the same time the world media was full of news about almost constant missile strikes on city. It did not sound good, not good at all - but I had already made up my mind and so I just shut my brain, eyes and ears to the newsfeed.

Reading the website visitukraine.today and looking at the travel advisories of Western foreign ministries, I admit getting a bit scared again and asked myself if I was about to do something so stupid that I couldn't even regret it later. (For those who do not know: no country gives advice on traveling TO Ukraine - instead, one can find a lot of information on how to get OUT of Ukraine immediately, and how not to rely on your country's diplomatic mission.)

Anyway, I had the ticket and, despite the pleas of a few friends to cancel the trip at the last minute (my mother had no worries whatsoever - because her I told, I was going to visit a friend in Poland), I was more or less confident in my decision. I spent a whole week chasing the much-needed documents, such as the Ukrainian Covid insurance and Covid vaccination certificate, as well as printing out the airBNB invoice and the flight and bus tickets, stocked up on a flashlight, a power bank, woolen socks and a large amount of cash, and rehearsed in my head a series of phrases to justify to border guards my entry as a random tourist into a war-torn country, and stepped out of my flat into a cab on the morning of 16 January at around half past four.