Islands of Fame

As currents of time swirl through the streets of Odessa and the Ukraine, eddies form around people and ideas that lived, creating islands of fame in the form of statues and monuments, the residue of fashions and opinions that once were and need to be remembered: historical bookmarks. They become icons representing how places and people want to view themselves. Once you start seeing them, you recognize how pervasive these historical push-pins really are. What have we seen so far in Odessa and Kiev? These are just a sampling.

Odessa and the Ukraine are old, old, old, but they also see themselves as newborns. This sculpture punctuates the Odessa harbor, the entryway to the city by sea, and a main source of its livelihood.

The toes of the child have lost their glaze from people touching them. In the Ukraine, if you touch part of a statue, you become endowed with a virtue symbolized by what you touched.

This statue of Pushkin has a shiny nose. It is not certain what virtue that conveys, but Pushkin, a pivotal figure in Russian literature, represents at the same time both independence of mind and the manners of the court. Touch his nose for luck, they say.

For luck in love, of course, you attach your lock to this metal framework.

Or you can touch Gene Kelly and dance away.

Everyone has their picture taken at the "I Love Odessa" sculpture. There is a line to get to this one, and you have to be quick or risk having a stranger in your picture.

Sit with Leonid Utesov, the famous jazz musician and actor, and have your picture taken. Adults sit next to him, but you can see that young people feel at home with this inviting, interactive piece of art. Little children love it and climb all over it. You have to line up for a picture of this one too.

Sculptures and monuments take you back in time.

The most dramatic of these for me is the Golden Gate, one of the few remnants of the city wall that used to surround Kiev. This reconstruction of the gate, which was destroyed and rebuilt, is, of course, controversial. But as a symbol of a critical point in a very old and violent history, the gate draws from you feelings of the strength of the currents that bear humans forward. Mussorgsky wrote a musical monument to this gate in "Pictures at an Exhibition". The piece "At the Great Gate of Kiev" exemplifies the powerful effect of a monument on the viewer.

Near the Golden Gate, this stone monument, not much taller than a person, quietly recalls a moment, perhaps a person, or perhaps a cause that at some point was worth time and effort to memorialize.

What an interesting contrast we found on the streets of Odessa, painted by a student artist on an electrical junction box. 

A modern legend inscribed on a pillar. 

There are also living monuments walking the streets of Odessa.

Symbols of the old...

...and the older.

Finally, there are mixed monuments which combine the best parts of history with the brightest hopes for the future.

The statue of the Duke of Richelieu, benefactor of Odessa through its most critical period. On the Ukrainian Independence Day, he was dressed in a larger-than-life traditional peasant "vyshyvanka", a symbol of the wearer's locale. As powerful a symbol as the cowboy hat of the American west, or the lumberjack plaid of the northwest.

The Independence Monument at Maidan Square in Kiev is a symbol of hope in this critical period of a young nation: hope for continued self-determination.

But Marsha and I find there is a symbol of a more enduring kind at the Temple in Kiev. For us this is a monument of promise that life goes on, that we all have identity that reaches beyond the limits of mortality, and that our fondest associations can exist for an eternity.

These are some of the islands of fame, hope, and peace in the currents of time in Odessa and the Ukraine. There are so many if we look about to see them.

Currents Under Ground

Carved into the earth beneath our feet are channels through which flow silent but powerful currents. There are, of course, Metro systems through which metal worms carry people to work, but on a larger time scale, there are catacombs beneath Odessa less well known, but even more consequential than the ride to work.

Let's enter the catacombs.

There are hundreds of years of work here, to create a system of underground tunnels through which currents of pirates, smugglers, soldiers, and haven-seekers have found their way, in the deepest darkness.

The tunnels were carved by waves of users through soft limestone, using saws like this one, some larger than this. The walls, therefore, are flat rather than craggy and rough. The passage feels more like poured concrete than chipped stone.

People lived near-normal, sunless lives here. They had kitchens for food preparation...

...improvised ovens...

...grinding stones for flour...

...water wells.

Can you see how flat and regular the walls were? Joined at right angles.

There were communication centers...

...command centers...

...headquarters conference rooms...

...storage space for weapons...

...a target-shooting range...

...and places to sleep.

There were schools...

...and hospitals.

For the patient beyond hope there was a morgue, seen here as a doorway leading down.

The motive power of the people-currents in these tunnels was hope: different hopes for different people. Hope they would not be discovered; the pirate's and smuggler's hope of getting rich; hope of becoming free by resisting aggression, hope that there could be found sufficient supplies; hope they would not be betrayed by surface-dwellers; hope that they could some day emerge from the darkness, for whatever purpose, with their prize.

These giant hands carved from rock represent the hopes of tunnel denizens--aggressor and fugitive--that they could find safety and prosper their cause in the tunnels.

Above ground, after touring the catacombs, we took deep breaths that we would not take underground. Hundreds...thousands before us had also emerged: as prisoners, as victors, as escapees, as pirates, as once again surface dwellers.

Hope...the unrecognized mainspring of action. What a great adventure, and lesson, in the catacombs!