In the war’s early weeks, rumors seeded by Kremlin propaganda flew around the city: Moscow would never hit the historic center, the mayor had loaded a boat filled with roses to greet Russian soldiers, a silent majority of residents were waiting for a Russian “liberation.” And -– at least until the Kremlin illegally annexed the nearby Crimean Peninsula in 2014 -– its beaches were beloved by Russian tourists. Its Orthodox cathedral belongs to Moscow’s patriarchate. Its ports were key to last year’s international agreement that let Ukraine and Russia ship their grain to the rest of the world. Odesa’s past is intertwined with some of Russia’s most revered figures, including Catherine the Great, author Leo Tolstoy and poet Anna Akhmatova. A group of nuns pray outside the Odesa Transfiguration Cathedral in Odesa, Ukraine, Sunday, July 23, 2023, following Russian missile attacks. I will return, no matter what.”Įver since Ukraine gained independence from Moscow in 1991, Odesa viewed itself differently than the country’s other major cities because of its long, conflicted history and an outlook that stretched far beyond its borders. “After the war ends - and I believe that Ukraine will defeat this filth, these vampires - I will come back home. “At any moment, you can just be hit and your whole body will be torn apart,” she said. ![]() Now, she’s making a quick trip back to her place in Kharkiv to grab winter clothes so she can wait out the war in Ireland, “because here we are not protected for a single second, in any city.” Her neck still has a shrapnel scar from the third day of the war, when her apartment was hit. A group of high school students sit on a breakwater at a popular beach attraction along the shore of the Black Sea in Odesa, Ukraine, Sunday, July 23, 2023. I endured that hell and came to sunny Odesa, the pearl, the heart of our Ukraine,” said Khlapova, who has lived in the country for 40 of her 50 years. None struck quite as deeply as the one that destroyed the cathedral, which stands at the heart of the city’s romantic, notorious past and its deep roots in both Ukrainian and Russian culture. In only a week, Russia has fired dozens of missiles and drones at the Odesa region. ![]() But not as the war refugee that she has become. Khlapova was raised in Ukraine and had always dreamed of living in the seaside city. ODESA - Tetiana Khlapova’s hand trembled as she recorded the wreckage of Odesa’s devastated Transfiguration Cathedral on her cellphone and cursed Russia, her native land.
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