22. The End

By February 2024, it is clear that it’s not for me. No, not Odesa as such, but my job at the logistics company. I explain the situation to my employer, he agrees with me and doesn’t mind. We part as friends. So I’m a free man in free Odesa – free to sit in a café during the daytime, sipping a glass of wine and looking at life and people, free to take long walks to places I’ve never been and free to enjoy life to the full.

At least, that’s how I imagine it will be during the last few weeks at work – that as soon as I’m out of the office, I will start enjoying life and the city.

The reality is different, of course. In reality, I’m just not that kind of person. In reality, I am soon again immersed in personal projects, warming up old acquaintances to whom I’ve written various texts to and announcing that I’m ready to offer my services again. Soon, my days are spent writing, editing, and searching for a job – something that fits my profile better than international express deliveries.

Yes, I do sit in cafés – making plans with friends and acquaintances and discussing what we could all do together. Start perhaps a business, launch a project, or do something else exciting... Great conversations, of which most (but not all!) also remain conversations.

But do I now have a better chance to get to know Odesa, my chosen home town?

Yes and no. Now I really can take walks in the daytime and walk without worrying about the time of day also to places that would otherwise have seemed too far off. However, life goes on as usual – trajectories are set, and steering my life along them becomes easy. It’s nice to have walks along Primorsky Boulevard, pop into the “12 Coffee and Croissants” in the Palais-Royal garden, do some shopping at the Silpo or the corner shop even closer to my home, and go to the Irish pub in the evening. All pleasantly close at hand...

Alas, cracks start to appear in this routine in March. Severe cracks. These cracks are increasing air raids on Odesa. Soon, not a night goes by without the wailing of sirens, soon followed by the banging and rattling of anti-aircraft guns, the noise of drone engines, and the sounds of explosions both far and near. Often the whole racket seems to be happening right above my head, and even if I can cope with it, my girlfriend – the one mentioned above as my young colleague – can not.

Since my girlfriend has also started working remotely, we both began to wonder if we really need to stay in Odesa. While I have a growing circle of friends and life is becoming more comfortable here, perhaps it’s the idea of settling down that’s unsettling.

After all, I accepted the job offer in Odesa partly due to its exotic allure and my desire to explore the unknown. But now, Odesa is no longer an unfamiliar territory.

Numerous ideas are swirling in our minds. We’re contemplating the prospect of relocating to another country – Bulgaria, Albania, Poland, and Turkey all hold an allure – or to a different city within Ukraine. Lviv is increasingly prominent in our discussions. Following a winter visit to the capital of Western Ukraine, the city’s appeal is undeniable. Its visible reminders of a royal and imperial past, coupled with a medieval core surrounded by an impressive 19th-century architectural ensemble, evoke both awe and charm. Additionally, the notion of living in a Ukrainian-speaking environment seems to make sense on a practical level. In Odesa, my Ukrainian language studies often feel constrained by the predominance of “Odesan-speaking” surroundings.

So, why not Lviv? However, we haven’t finalized this decision yet. We are broadly leaning towards Western Ukraine, as it is my girlfriend’s native land and the most peaceful region during the war. Yet while Lviv is indeed the metropolis of Western Ukraine, there are other cities in the region that should not be dismissed without careful consideration.

With the first warm – even hot – spring days arriving on the last weekend of March, we head to Ivano-Frankivsk, which my girlfriend describes as "Little Lviv." There really is something similar in these cities. And with 240,000 inhabitants, Ivano-Frankivsk is not that small. It’s a charming place with a quaint downtown where, apart from a few churches, there’s nothing very old remaining. But the originality makes up for the lack of antiquities.

The symbol of Ivano-Frankivsk is the bold Art Deco town hall, or simply the Ratusha, as the locals call it, begun in the late 1920s and completed in the 1930s. There is a remarkable number of Art Deco and functionalist-style buildings in Ivano-Frankivsk in general – it is clear that the interwar period under Poland was a time of growth and innovation for Stanisławów, as it was called back then.

Surprisingly, there are also many new developments, offering nice apartments for rental prices that are only slightly higher than those in Odesa. Maybe we should move here then? The apartments are quite good, everything in the city is within walking distance, and I can see Ukrainian fighter jets on training flights on the horizon. In other words, it’s definitely safe here.

However, the fact that I-F is small is the deciding factor. Small in the sense that there is no international life and the city is far from any communications – getting anywhere requires a couple of hours by train from Lviv – and so there are almost no foreigners here, with whom it would certainly be easier for me to talk than with the locals, whose language I have been learning for almost a year, but I am still far from being able to speak fluently or even understand anything more complex than children’s books. So still Lviv?

I'm already fed up after looking at a bunch of apartments in Ivano-Frankivsk. The prospect of moving seems daunting, and I just want to go back home to Odesa. However, we decide to make one last effort on the way back, which naturally takes us through Lviv, lying to the northwest.

On the train Monday morning, I take out my phone and contact some real estate agents, who start bombarding me with pictures after pictures of new apartments. Wiser from my experience in Ivano-Frankivsk, I mention in writing that I am a foreigner who can write in Ukrainian but not speak it, and inquire about visiting specific apartments. In response, I almost always get a call instead of a straightforward answer. Having encountered this repeatedly in Ivano-Frankivsk, I simply ignore such bidders. However, with a little effort, I manage to arrange visits to two apartments with two brokers on the same day.

We arrive in Lviv a few hours later. The weather is sunny and cloudless, and the first apartment is a half-hour walk from the railway station. It is located in a so-called ЖК, or житловий комплекс, meaning residential complex. The phrase isn’t particularly good Ukrainian, but it aptly describes these large, sometimes gigantic, new housing developments with ten- to fifteen-storey apartment blocks containing hundreds of apartments. Seeing them, Le Corbusier would rejoice; everyone else would sigh. But, as I will soon see, it’s not always that bad…

Walking from the railway station along gently sloping streets lined with dilapidated neoclassical and functionalist façades, we finally reach the edge of the new housing development. Yes, the buildings are tall – ten to twelve storeys – but they are brightly colored and new, with many balconies and floor-to-ceiling windows. Shops and cafés fill the first floors, and the whole area is bordered on all sides by older buildings. The most important aspect is the location: this new housing estate on Taras Shevchenko Street lies perfectly halfway between the railway station and the old town.

As we still have some time before meeting the agent, we walk around between the buildings, sit in a café, and wait. Soon, a cheerful, plump middle-aged lady with a strong Western Ukrainian dialect arrives. Together, we take the lift up to the sixth floor, the lady singing praises of the house, the apartment, and its owners.

We look around the apartment: a living room with a separate laundry room next to it, a small kitchen, and a windowed balcony with another storage room behind it. Moving further, there’s a large living room, a shared toilet and bathroom (with a bathtub, not a shower cubicle like in my Odesa apartment), a dressing room, and a bedroom with a French balcony overlooking the old town in the distance.

The apartment itself and the furniture appear to be in good condition, with bathroom walls tiled in a style reminiscent of the façades of old Portuguese houses seen in travel advertisements. The overall impression is spacious and airy, as the layout of the apartment makes it seem larger than the 50 square meters stated in the documents. So, it’s hard to complain. While this place lacks the originality of my Odesa nest, I understand that it never gets as hot here in summer as it does there – the bedroom window faces east, the kitchen and living room face west, and the apartment itself is not under a tin roof.

We thank the agent, allow ourselves until the afternoon to think about it, and then, looking at the clock, realize it’s time to look at the second apartment. It’s just a short walk away too, but not in a new development, rather on one of the 19th-century streets. Following the address, we arrive in front of a beautiful Art Nouveau house, and for the first moment, I feel that I like it much more. After a moment, the real estate agent arrives – a young woman, obviously coming from a gym, with a gym bag over her shoulder and dressed in a buttock-stressing pair of tight sweatpants.

It turns out the apartment itself is located in the courtyard, which isn't all bad as it makes it quieter. Unfortunately, it's on the ground floor, making it extremely dark and shady. The rooms feel a bit cramped and overloaded with furniture. Despite this, it exudes a cozy and tasteful ambiance.

So, we thank this agent as well and promise to get back to her the same day. As soon as she’s out of sight, we both agree we've had enough of real estate for the day and decide to walk to the old town for a meal, reflecting on what we've seen. We head to the medieval inn under the Bernardine monastery, a place we visited back in February, known for its rustic soups, delicious homemade kvas, and excellent artisan bread.

Despite the early hour, at another table, a group of elderly locals is already enjoying beer and horilka, accompanied by a table full of dishes, as per Ukrainian custom. The atmosphere is relaxed, devoid of excessive noise or laughter, but filled with genuine enjoyment. If it were my first visit, this cheerful scene alone would convince me of the place’s charm.

But my thoughts are already turning to Lviv, hinting at what comes next. Long story short, after finishing our soup and a brief moment of hesitation, we call the first broker, sign the lease in the kitchen of the ЖК that same afternoon, and obtain the keys. After the landlord and broker leave, we find ourselves alone in the apartment, laughing awkwardly as we ponder what we’ve just done. Yet, decisions made, we prepare for one last train journey to Odesa. There, we pack up, meet with all our friends over the next few days, who are slightly shocked by this sudden decision, and return to Lviv around half past six on Saturday morning. A new life in a new city is about to begin.