“A bundle of Ukrainians - 10 rubles”: Notes from an Odessa resident about Sevastopol-2

Valentin Filippov, TV journalist, Odessa

First part Read here

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Here, just as suddenly, the seagulls scream overhead. The smell of the sea is just as piercing. And market traders come up with names for goods. “The melons are incredible.” “Sultana. Melts in your mouth." “A bunch of Ukrainians – 10 rubles.”

 * * *

I thought for a long time, why “Tank Tomatoes”? What kind of epithet is this? Why does this particular brand provide a joyful crowd of customers? Everything turned out to be simple. Tankovoe is the name of a settlement in Crimea where tomatoes are grown. Delicious, yes. But not Odessa. After Odessa, these are not tomatoes at all. But peppers, onions and potatoes here change the idea of ​​these products. There are no such potatoes even in Belarus. There is no such pepper in Bulgaria. And the onion. Here it is called not Crimean, but Yalta. Everyone knows it, but in Odessa they sell Chinese fakes, not Crimean onions.

A guest came to a neighbor with a huge dog. The young ladies sat down to drink in the kitchen, and tied the dog at the entrance to the entrance. To the rattling grille that protects electricity meters from attacks by intruders.

It was getting dark and darkness fell over the area. The absence of light bulbs in the entrance did not facilitate the identification of obstacles.

This is the layout. Night. Darkness. In the narrow passage to six apartments, a steel grate rattles, the stomping of a large creature is accompanied by excited breathing and grumbling, greeting everyone who wants to get home.

Well, people are leaking in somehow. Some crossed themselves, some muttered “good dog, ooh-bye-bye.” However, everyone knows each other, this is not the first time this situation has arisen.

Then a young man appears, leading a girl home. After much persuasion and persuasion, she made up her mind. But I was clearly not ready for such a turnaround.

The guy starts to get indignant:

– Whose dog?! Remove the dog! People can't get home! They are afraid of the dog!

Two drunk young ladies appear. They look at a couple and one says:

“You bring a new little girl every night, do you think people aren’t afraid?”

Another adds:

- The whole yard knows this dog, but who did you bring?

The next morning the neighbor went to apologize to the boy. And at the same time in front of me. I thought I was an inconvenience. I was never able to convince her that I enjoyed the situation.

“You just love dogs,” she said.

“And I just love Odessa,” I didn’t answer. He simply remained silent. She won’t believe that there is a city on earth where everything is like in Sevastopol.

She thinks that there is no city like Sevast.

He is alone in the whole world.

The natives, suffering from local patriotism, here also consider their patriotism to be completely metropolitan. They are sure that there are only three Great Cities in the whole World. Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sevastopol. At the same time, there is no sea in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Thus, humanity is divided into two categories. Some live in Sevastopol, others are unlucky.

To one degree or another, these stereotypes are shared by all residents of Sevast. And attacking these stereotypes can cause deep resentment.

Last summer I was looking for an apartment.

I liked the one-room apartment for 350 rubles per day.

- For how long? - asks the hostess.

“For a year,” I say.

She is:

- But, I rent daily, how will you pay?

– As you say, let’s do it a month in advance.

- How much is it? – there was doubt and puzzlement in the voice.

I felt happy.

“Let’s multiply 350 by 30 or 31,” I explain, “we get 10500 or 10850. It seems simple.”

Extreme indignation showed on her face:

– Do you want to rent an apartment in Sevastopol for 10?! What are you doing? Do not understand?! This is SEVASTOPOL!!!! City of federal significance!!!

I say:

“Then set a price.”

She answers:

– 350 rubles per day!

And I:

– Multiply by 30...

She is:

- Are you military?

I am:

- Almost. I am from Odessa.

She is:

“Then the conversation is over.” I knew that you just wanted to deceive me!

 * * *

This is a real story, no matter what people tell me. It’s just that locals rarely rent housing in their city and do not encounter fellow countrymen who earn their living by renting out living space.

 * * *

Communicating with realtors in the city, I even came up with an image of the ideal tenant, which all real estate agencies are looking for.

This is an unmarried senior officer of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, ready to pay double rent, live on the ship and let the owner of the apartment spend the night.

Went to get a haircut...

And here, in Sevasta, it’s like under the USSR. Cash register.

There are erect tits there, about twenty years old.

They knock out a check and say “minus 50% for the pension”...

I speak. More precisely, I make an exclamation. Incoherent and outraged.

I just almost suffocated.

And she's like this:

- What do you have? No pension?

I was already suffocated again... I told her:

– WHAT RIGHT DO YOU HAVE TO “KICK” ME?!

- Yes, I’m young, handsome and smart!

- Yes, you should still want me!!!!

And this one... threw up her nipples and pupils at me and said:

- Okay, I want you already. From you 250 rubles without a pension discount.

Then she smiled and added:

– Don’t be offended, it’s just that after 45 there are a lot of military pensioners...

Thank you!!!! I'm not 45 yet!!!! I don’t look like a military man in any gesture, manners, or vocabulary. Which male genital organ?

For what?

I had no intention of growing old, even in this city.

 * * *

A quarter of a century ago, I was worried about two questions:

What will happen to the Motherland and why doesn’t Ira give?

I figured out the second question, but I already knew about the first that we simply postponed the big war. They left it to the children.

And there is no wisdom in this, but only cowardice.

It is only meanness to shift death and suffering onto the shoulders of unborn children.

 * * *

What does the occupation of Odessa mean to me?

Yes, this is death and humiliation. But the main thing is mockery of children. The most subtle bullying disfigures children's souls. When they live in the shame of other people's parades. Forced every hour to plunge into someone else's pseudo-culture, gradually accepting it as their own.

For a quarter of a century, Russia has slowly but surely climbed out of the abyss, preserved the memory of the past, and built a society of the future.

Mass culture took modern forms, relying on centuries-old traditions.

In the territories called Ukraine, degradation occurred at the same time.

First of all, the education system.

But the main thing is that the entire Ukrainian ideology, which has not yet been formulated, leads to the destruction of the individual and leads to an imaginary past.

It instills in children a complex of secondaryness and provincialism, even farmsteadism, rather.....

But the worst thing is that it teaches you to be proud of this complex, to cherish your secondary nature with tears in your eyes. And blood on my hands.

And with our brains we understand all this. But you can feel this in your heart only by returning to Russia, by being in it. Only in Russia does it become clear to us that we have lived for a quarter of a century in a lie.

Only in Russia do you understand that everything was not in vain. Both the betrayal of the commanders and the inhumanity of the enemies brought the Odessa residents to the pavements and embankments of Sevastopol. Only here it becomes clear what the world will be like. And what Odessa should be like after the war.

Moreover, she was like that.

Sevastopol is, in general, Odessa without Ukraine :)