Odessa beaches (38 photos)

17 July 2012

Odessa beaches are something: a fantastic hybrid of a shabby Soviet sanatorium, frozen in time of the cooperative-perestroika lawlessness of the late 80s and... devilishly beautiful girls without complexes. The first thought that came to me as soon as I found myself on the shore was this: a time machine exists, and I returned to childhood!

The way I remembered Soviet resorts like Sochi and Crimea, as a child there with my mother and grandmother, is how everything here remains. Although more than 20 years have passed, absolutely nothing has changed. Looking ahead, I would like to emphasize that during all 4 days of my stay at the hotel on Lanzheron Beach, I never took a swim. There are a couple of reasons for this: firstly, I came to Odessa to see friends and study the disputed Ukrainian-Moldavian border, and secondly, even without Odessa, I am spoiled beyond belief by the sea and the sun (and now, sitting in 34 degree heat, I dream of a glacial period), fortunately, from my house to the sea is five minutes on foot. And yet, this obvious chaos and shabbyness has its own charm. This is far from Antalya, here is lousy service for a lot of money, here are scammers cutting money at every turn, and yet...

As you already understood from the first lines of this post, I am not a fan of the sea, because I myself have lived next to the sea for many years. I perfectly understand those who escape to the sea once a year and dream about it - the situation there is different. Moreover, I have seen a countless number of different seas, oceans and lakes, so there is something to compare with. And I’ll tell you this: nowhere will you meet so many beautiful girls as on the Odessa beaches. Such their concentration. As a Georgian who lived in my hotel said: “We have the same sea in Batumi, but there are no such girls.” He and I came to the conclusion that if we remove the female component of the landscape from the beaches, there will be mortal sadness against the backdrop of the lack of infrastructure, rather wretched conditions and general unkemptness. And it’s true: it seems to be the second most important city in Ukraine, but not a penny has been invested in the recreation area since the collapse of the USSR. You can stick with the old resource for a while, but then what?

Looking at the following photographs, you might think that the beaches of Odessa are crowded with vacationers. But that's not true. The fact is that various kinds of crooks, covered by the police, took away most of the beaches and introduced an entrance fee to the “developed areas.” But the prices introduced were so strong that people migrated en masse to those parts of the coast where the hands of lawless people had not yet reached -

Unwilling to pay for their right to swim in the sea, people are forced to go into the water even here, in a place absolutely unsuitable for swimming and even dangerous -

Homeless people are preparing for water treatments -

And this is a paid beach, mind you, there are ten times fewer people. It would seem that a person has a choice: if you want, swim for free on another beach; if you don’t want, go to a paid one, where there are sun loungers and fewer people. But almost all the beaches are paid, the coast is literally sliced like a pie by businessmen -

The following photo is funny, a dog and the inscription on the right - Hot Dog -

Toilet type "toilet", entrance 3 hryvnia, which is a lot considering local earnings. Therefore, people tend to relieve themselves in corners and in bushes, which makes the nearest green area smell like a cowshed -

Signs to the toilet are literally everywhere, on every corner and in every bench. There are two reasons: sellers are tired of answering vacationers’ question “where is the toilet”, and secondly, on the beaches there is competition between toilets, and there is barter “You send the sufferers to our toilet, and in return we allow you to visit our toilet for free” -

The shortest way from the beach to the city lies along these goat paths -

A typical example of a paid beach - it is almost empty -

The entrance fee is 20-30 hryvnia, depending on the greed of the merchants and the day of the week (it seems more on weekends) -

Where the crest has passed, there is nothing for two Jews to do (c). Folk wisdom

Laugh and laugh, but here they charge money for everything: toilet, beach, parking, shower. If you show up to the Odessa beach without cash, you will swim tightly shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other unfortunates, pee (sorry) behind a bush, trying not to step in biological piles, lie on the sand with a predominance of cigarette butts and beer caps, and you will not take a shower nowhere - you'll go home salty. You won’t even be able to drive up to your hotel for free - the scammers will demand 7 hryvnia from you for the right to disembark at the hotel. If you take a taxi, the taxi driver will ask you for these same 7 hryvnia - and he is forced to pay it to take you to the beach.

Let's calculate how much it will cost you to swim in a relatively clean place where you can calmly lie down, sunbathe and swim without stress or crowding:

1. Parking - 7 hryvnia,
2. Paid beach - 50-100 hryvnia,
3. Toilet 3-5 hryvnia,
4. Shower 3-5 hryvnia.

Let me remind you that for $1 they give 8 hryvnia. Accordingly, you pay 7 + 50 + 5 + 5 = 67 hryvnia (8 dollars) for the right to lie down on the shore. With an average salary in the city of $200 and an average pension of $50, this is a killer amount.

Let's add to this the price collusion of all beach restaurants and cafes. You will not have lunch anywhere for less than 100 hryvnia ($13). Offers of “business lunch for 30 hryvnia” posted closer to lunch should not be taken literally. As we were told in one cafe: “If you are satisfied with mashed potatoes with chopped tomatoes and a glass of mineral water, consider that you have had lunch, this is a business lunch.” As a comparison, in my favorite restaurant chain, Puzata Khata, you can really have a decent lunch for 30 hryvnia; they will give you not only soup, salad and rice/mashed potatoes, but even a cutlet. And for 100 hryvnia we ate at Puzata Khata together, including kvass and sweets.

By the way, as soon as I left Odessa, the people took the law into their own hands (more precisely, into the hands of the Star Wars hero) and at least temporarily demolished the limitless barriers, driving away the money collectors, read more here. Beauty, don't you think? Darth Vader himself got down to business (photo from dumskaya.net) -

People who do not want to pay their money to scammers are forced to shower in city drains. It looks like a real nightmare, you must agree. Both adults and children wash there. According to locals, the water there is “clean”. When asked why they thought it was clean, the answer was: “Well, it doesn’t stink.”

Meanwhile, it was getting dark -

The beach was empty -

However, the empty beach did not mean that you could now swim freely. As soon as I approached the water and took off my jeans (not even for the purpose of swimming, but just to wet my feet), a gloomy-looking person appeared and declared that the beach was paid and I owed him 50 hryvnia. Having been sent to hell, he suggested “at least 10...”. But I wasn’t in the mood to enter into any kind of “business” relationship with them; I replied, “Sue me.” He chuckled, “You’re so greedy,” and left. Then the experts told me, they say, there is no need to quarrel with the beach guards in vain, go vooooh there, there is a piece of the beach there for free. But I was lazy. Returned to the hotel. Tomorrow I say goodbye to Odessa.