8. The Apartment
First, I live on Airbnbs. Why? Because it’s easy, the location in the center of the city, on Bunin Street, is great, and I don’t know yet how long I’ll be in Odesa, and - Airbnb is provided by my good friend, who lives in the apartment next door and gets a good price from the landlord. 10€ a night for basically a hotel room with all the amenities in the city center is not much: the room is clean, beautiful, the bed is great, there’s a fridge, microwave and a shower.
I’m looking at the real estate pages, compare prices, calculate square meters, check locations and the condition and furnishings of the apartments. And I quickly get an overview - there are plenty of furnished and renovated apartments on offer in the city center and by the sea, in Langeron and Arcadia. Anything inland, or just beyond the city center and Arcadia, is significantly cheaper, but yes - also significantly more remote. The 1-2 room apartments I’m interested in, of around 50 square meters, cost on average €300 per month. This seems reasonable. Especially considering the fact that it’s pointless to think about utility costs - they’re no more than twenty euros or so.
But I am wary of the horror stories about apartment owners in Odesa. Tales of landlords who are, to put it mildly, self-indulgent or simply deceitful are told by foreigners and Odesites alike. That’s why I am quite happy, when my German friend Max, who has lived in Odesa for 18 years and heard about my search for a place to live, tells me about an apartment he owns. Someone is still living in it for the time being, but that someone and his dog are due to move out.
The location is good - it’s a big, tall building, built in the beginning of the new millennium, right in the center of town, between my workplace and Shevchenko Park. The two-bedroom apartment with a sea view is on the top floor and the landlord charges 300 a month. Sounds good. Too good.
But I need to travel home in early May to apply for a work visa. Before that, I have to prepare the documents in Odesa, plus I have to work every day. So I don’t really have the time to search for other options. And this friend’s apartment is essentially waiting for me - apart from saying yes, I don’t have to do anything. And if I don’t like the place, I think, I can always look for something new. There’s plenty of choice.
So I make an agreement with my Airbnb owner to stay with him for another week in May, after I return, and then say Max, I want to rent his apartment. After that I can leave Odesa with a (more or less) calm heart for a week.
Upon my return to Odesa, I spend a week on Airbnb, go with Max to have a look at his 13th-floor apartment, and decide to move in straight away - even though the place is full of junk left over from several previous tenants. And there is lots of dog hair. Max promises to send a cleaner in the next few days anyhow, so I am not especially worried. I decide not to let any of this bother me, pack my things in the Airbnb, carry them to the new apartment and spend the first night - coming straight from the pub - in a bed full of dog hair. I only notice the hairs filling the sheets only in the morning. It’s not too bad, though - for the next night, I find some clean bed sheets in the cupboard, run them through the washing machine just in case, and everything is more or less fine. Looks like I can live here. Plus - the view is spectacular, straight out to sea - and the location is great.
From the beginning, I am a little disturbed by the way to get to the apartment: first I have to take the elevator to the 11th floor, then exit to the balcony, where the balustrade is made of rather delicate looking iron bars, enter the second staircase and then climb the stairs to the thirteenth floor.
Reflecting on the layout of the building, I inadvertently conclude that it is probably a case of the scheming and corruption so characteristic of Odesa - for example, the building permit may have only provided for the construction of an 11-storey house, or the basic plan may have been altered in a foolhardy way during construction.
I decide not to let this bother me either, and when I have to show the SBU (Ukrainian Internal Security) where I really live to get a residence permit, I tell them the address and meet the gentlemen in the courtyard. To my surprise, one of the athletically dressed young men even speaks English, although this is not necessary for this conversation.
“Do you live here?”
“Yes?”
“You rent?”
“Yes.”
“We need to take a picture with you holding the passport with the house in the background.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Like that?”
“Yes. Bye.”
“Bye.”
A few days later, however, something happens that makes me question my choice of the apartment. Question totally. I notice a cockroach on the bathroom carpet. Under the kitchen cupboard, I had already noticed the cockroach poison but secretly hoped it was a witness to some darker days of yore. Now it turns out not, because one encounter with a cockroach is followed by another, then another, and so on - almost every evening and night I see them buzzing around the kitchen and bathroom.
They make me nauseous. There’s nothing worse than cockroaches. I’ve always hated them with all my heart and I’m totally uncompromising on the subject - I refuse to live in a place infested by them.
At the same time, I ask myself whether it makes sense for me to be such a Westerner and dream of such a sterile life here in southern and in a sense eastern Odesa... I have heard before that there are cockroaches in this city. I’ve even seen them scurrying along the walls of some pubs. So I decide to take up arms against a sea of cockroaches and say to myself: there may be a lot of them, but I am the crown of nature and an intelligent being - I can do it! I go to the supermarket “Santim”, buy some bug traps, put special poison containing roach food in the kitchen and bathroom and I am satisfied with my handiwork. For now.
However, when I see the dark figures humming every night or evening as I turn on the kitchen or bathroom light, my heart sinks and I start to doubt myself. And I’ll talk to Max about it in a few days. Max shrugs and says that Odesa is full of cockroaches. I don’t know what to say. I turn to another friend, who also has a few years of Odesa experience behind him, and tell him about the problem. He shakes his head and says that that may be the case, but he hasn’t had any of these creatures in any of his Odesa apartments, and anyway I shouldn’t act like a fool: “You are here a lord! Live accordingly! The city is full of affordable apartments for you! Don’t be dumb!”
I understand that he is right and I immerse myself into the real estate ads again after work. In general, I already know what I want - the apartment should be downtown, have one to two rooms and be furnished. I quickly find a couple of apartments that look promising, but I don’t feel like contacting the real estate agents yet, so I’ll just put them aside and continue browsing.
Twenty minutes later I come across an apartment I have to have: a penthouse with skylights, stretching through two floors, with minimalist Scandinavian interior design, right behind the opera house. With the help of a Google translate, I write a polite but urgent letter to the broker, and even though it’s rather late in the evening, I get a reply immediately.
It’s a bit disappointing: my chosen apartment is already gone, but the broker promises there’s another one in the house that I’m welcome to see the very next day.
I hurry there during my lunch break. Soon the estate agent arrives - a full-bodied lady in her fifties who speaks decent English. She warns me first to watch out for the stairwell, but I’ve already been in Odesa long enough to not be shocked by an unrenovated staircase, with chaotic bundles of wires running over the walls where paint is peeling off, dusty cobwebs fill the corners, and the stench of shabbiness lingers in the air.
The apartment is... a disappointment. It’s essentially the same hotel room as my Airbnb was. Just on the second floor, a bit more spacious, with a really Scandinavian bright and airy feel to it. The furniture is modern, and there’s a tiny kitchen separate from the room. There’s a stove and washing machine, not to mention knives and forks, pots, pans and plates. However, this is absolutely not what I am looking for. I do say a hesitant yes, because for now I want to leave the roach nest as soon as possible. I am not interested in this crusade against these critters! So I think, once again, that there is always a chance to first move in and then look for something else. I don’t like the idea but at this point it seems to be a better option than staying.
The only thing that really attracts me about this little apartment is the price - 200. Coupled with its location right behind the Odesa Opera and Ballet Theatre, it’s certainly not the worst possible solution... And even if I don’t live here like a lord, at least I’ll live cheaply and in the best location.
“Actually, we’ve got something else in the house,” the broker shrugs as she steps back to the staircase. “But you will hardly be interested, it’s much more expensive.”
“Well, let’s have a look while we’re already here,” I reply, more out of politeness than any real interest.
“Let’s go upstairs, then,” the broker proposes.
We first enter through a door that resembles the entrance to yet another apartment, and find ourselves in a narrow stairwell that has been completely renovated. When we get up the steep staircase, a corridor opens up with four or five doors. The real estate agent opens one of the doors, and as I step inside, it seems to me that this is the apartment of my so-called dreams, the one I had seen in the ad. I realize, however, that something is different. I get it - it’s a mirror image of the apartment I saw in the ads.
I understand immediately that this is what I want. And I applaud the broker’s cleverness in showing me the worse place first, and then leading me to the real thing. I walk around the apartment, look upstairs - bed, skylights, second bathroom - then examine the gas stove together with the broker and discover that it has a child lock, which we can only overcome after a phone call to the cleaner.
The real estate agent praises the owner, a former airline pilot from Luxembourg who has been dealing in Odesa real estate for twenty years. I like it all. But I decide not to show it.
“May I tell you tomorrow, which apartment I would prefer?” I ask.
“Yes, it’s fine, but I warn you, one more person is coming to look at the larger one today.”
I nod indifferently and hurry back to the office. Once there, I immediately contact the local lawyer, who helped me get my residence permit, and ask him if he is willing to negotiate the terms of the contract on my behalf. He agrees. And for a very reasonable hourly rate. Then I wait until the next morning and write to the broker about my decision - that I want to get a bigger flat - whereupon she happily informs me that she can send the contract immediately and give me the keys the same day. A little startled by this trust, I tell her there’s no hurry and I want to show the contract to the lawyer first. The real estate agent does not seem to mind and sends me a 4-5 page contract in Russian, which I pass on to the lawyer. He immediately replies that there are points in the contract that are very damaging to the tenant and that it is definitely necessary to negotiate. I give him my blessing and wait.
In a few days the lawyer writes me. “Do you need a full translation of the contract or will a summary do?” he asks me. “Summary will do.” The lawyer then lists some of the nasty points of the original contract (any guest staying in the apartment for more than three days must have the owner’s consent; the owner has the right to cancel the contract if the neighbors call the police, regardless of who is at fault and whether or not calling the police was justified, etc.), which he has had removed, and wishes me luck.
I meet the broker that very afternoon, she gives me the keys and together we make a video call to the owner, who turns out to be a cheerful English-speaking man in his 50s with a slight French accent. We arrange a face-to-face meeting the same weekend, I transfer the deposit and the first month’s rent to the broker’s account, and that’s it for now. The broker hands me a bundle of keys and leaves.
“Listen,” a friend warns me a few hours later, “by now they have already changed the locks and you’ll never see the broker or the owner again.”
It’s half in jest, though, and I don’t take the warning too seriously. Instead, I go to my bachelor pad, pack up my belongings that fit into a suitcase and backpack and move. Done. Admittedly, there is a shortage of bed sheets, so I’ll borrow some slightly less dog hair-covered sheets.
It’s probably quite a funny sight: walking through the warm summer twilight of Odesa with a blanket and a bunch of linen on my lap. I promise to return them when I’ve bought new ones, but Max won’t hear of it. Instead, he swears fervently to me that he’ll have the apartment emptied of cockroaches before he tries to rent it out to the next person. As I hear later, he succeeds.
I give Max a present about a month later, when I have finally managed to buy a large quantity of bed sheets and towels, along with a fresh set of sheets and a pillowcase. He receives some new ones instead of the stuff I “borrowed” from the apartment.
On Saturday morning, the owner of the luxurious Luxembourgish flat is at my door, a smile on his face. He introduces himself and asks me before I can say anything: “What are you doing here?” I then give a brief outline of what brought me to Odesa and what I do for a living, he in turn talks about his life - 20 years in the real estate business in Odesa is a fun and fascinating subject - and then we go over the apartment. The landlord promises to supply me with kitchen utensils and other necessities. He keeps his promise one hundred per cent, and for that and in every other respect I have not regretted my decision to rent this particular apartment. In fact, it is the most beautiful place I have ever lived in.
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