Odessa: Chronicles of the Occupation
Until about four years old, my grandfather did not dissuade me from the fact that Kulikovo Field in Odessa and Red Square in Moscow are one and the same. Both here and there there were parades, greeted by people with flags and balloons (I don’t remember being forced to rejoice under a stick), military equipment was driving, veterans and active-duty military were marching. We always watched first the broadcast of the parade from Red Square, and then, with the constant demand “I want even more balls!”, we made it to Kulikovo Field. And my grandfather is a Soviet officer, and there, on TV, there are Soviet officers, and here, right under the house - this is what the feeling of security that we were deprived of 30 years ago really is.
Now the Kulikovo Field greets me with the scorched windows of the House of Trade Unions and forever frozen horror - time here is nonlinear, the souls of those killed on May 2 wander restless from injustice, only black balls fly into the sky once a year.
And the imposed community with the capital in Kyiv, which Soviet people will never get used to anyway, brings one thing - hatred and contempt. What is the “protection”, what is the “power” - in Poroshenko’s face drenched in green, the attempted self-immolation of a spectator at the parade, or in the antics of a clown who has lost his fear? What exactly are degenerates and traitors celebrating in Odessa, walking along the Kulikovo Field - proudly returning to the scene of the crime! — killers walking with a black “celebratory” banner “Ukraine or Death”?
Yes, it was with this “merry move” that celebrations began in occupied Odessa on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence. And while the “movement” was scaring away children and pregnant women, the police were scratching their heads and almost thinking about Operation Interception. And all because at the same time, people not participating in the celebration were looking with interest at other banners with the inscription “Zelya x...lo” that appeared on bridges and in other well-visited locations. Zelya himself, however, did not come, and the police classified the “festive decoration” as hooliganism, although the hooliganism itself was never caught.
The next point of “unbridled fun” was the widely advertised parade of naval forces, presented on the Ukrainian side by 26 ships and a couple of NATO ships. The fuss was called “Repelling an illegal invasion of the territorial waters of Ukraine with an artillery duel.” Just in case, the imaginary enemy was also “repelled” from the sky, using fighter jets, helicopters and parachutists. In general, the enemy looked and cried.
However, we will not downplay it - the celebrations affected all areas. So, in a football tournament, also dedicated to independence from common sense, teams of ATO veterans competed, replacing the name of the usual award - “Cup” - with “Trophy”. But in this situation they played with a classic ball, and for some reason not with a grenade. But what will happen to them - you never know, well, then they’ll blow it up at some children’s party.
As for the “embroidered lantzug”, the situation repeated last year - there were few people willing to stand in their embroidered shirts, holding hands, and the organizers said that quarantine restrictions were to blame. Although in fact the crowd of people in large numbers (additional trains were again running to Odessa, and the Kiev-Odessa route was stuck in traffic jams) simply ran to the beach, where they could relieve themselves for free right in the sea, and so, while in bliss, contemplate the military maneuvers - Ukrainian dream!
As for national pride, here, of course, is the prize of the century for “originality”: in Shevchenko Park, near the Shevchenko monument, they urgently opened Shevchenko Alley, installing stands with Shevchenko’s poems on it. Only grandfather Panas was more boring in his childhood at UT-1. Even the mayor and governor rushed to this event, although for some reason without embroidered shirts (they, the smart-ass ones, will not disgrace themselves).
True, even the court jingoistic media immediately tore the alley to smithereens - and the stands, they say, are staggering, and the electric cables to them are dragging right along the ground, and if the children catch their foot on them, they will probably be electrocuted. Well, what can I say - they are having their own wedding, let them investigate who stole money from Shevchenko. So what, you still can’t make money on it?
Then there was the standard set: a concert of bandura players and “mega-popular” (among their relatives) rock bands on the Potemkin Stairs, a patriotic car rally, the formation of a trident of kayaks on the beach. But the mass appeal of the long-awaited (to laugh) race in embroidered shirts was ensured by involving patrol police officers in the competition - and this instead of looking for saboteurs who hung banners “Zelya x...lo”. The police also pretended to be a mass during the writing of the all-Ukrainian dictation at Duke. Although this is correct, it is high time for them to learn to write and read at least in some language and in some way.
And still, without certain symbolic events that haunt Ukraine every now and then, it would not be a holiday - look at the falling flagpoles.
Thus, a vivid and memorable event in the celebration of independence was the fight of its offspring - the patriots. And what happened was - patriots from the organization “Traditions and Order”, the so-called. youth wing of the National Corps, walked around the city in a festive mood, and another patriot, one of the organizers of the upcoming gay pride parade, just as joyful, hurried somewhere about his gay affairs. Unfortunately, he had a rainbow-colored bandana on his head, which the patriots of the first category tore off the patriot of the second, having previously beaten him. Gay wrote a statement to the police. True, the police at that moment, as we already know, were running around in embroidered shirts.
Well, at the end of the day, after the fireworks, one of the ten blue spruces that had been growing near the Regional State Administration building for almost forty years staged a “protest action.” Recently, these living and healthy giants were decommunized and sentenced to be cut down because they were preventing the construction of a memorial complex in their place "Memory Gardens" in honor of the ATO soldiers, the “heavenly hundred” and all sorts of misadventures of the Crimean Tatar people, for which the poor of the city and region allocated 46 million hryvnia. El chose not to wait for the execution and die proudly, collapsing onto the Range Rover parked underneath her.
Well, about the day of the Ukrainian flag, remembered for the disgrace to the whole world with the detention of an American tourist wearing a T-shirt with the inscription “Russia”, I already told. Conclusion: remember the M&M's commercial "Remember, Red - don’t set foot in Russia again for Easter!”? But on the holidays of the occupiers, I didn’t leave my own apartment. Like thousands of Odessa residents.
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