Iron & Soil: Journey Through the Battle for Ukraine
Part 8

793 words

All parts here.

We are back in Odessa. The delivery round has been successfully completed. Only one crate of medical supplies remains to be taken to Kyiv. But before that, one day of rest. A day to explore the city, to talk to the locals.

The streets are crowded, yet somehow quiet. Footsteps, voices, the occasional distant wail of a siren. People move with purpose. There is no aimless wandering here, no idle standing. A city at war does not allow such things.

In a café, old men sit on iron chairs, drinking strong black coffee. They speak in low voices, pausing only to glance at their phones. Every man here knows someone at the front. Some are waiting for messages that will never come. Others pretend they are not waiting for anything at all.

The Privoz market is still open; the war has not swallowed it. It pulses with noise and restlessness, like the sea. The air is thick with smells – fresh bread, raw fish, sweat, spices, damp earth. Voices rise and fall, vendors shout prices, bargain, laugh, curse. Hands exchange money. Only cash. Bank cards are useless here. Before stepping in, you check your pockets.

The market stretches over several blocks, a vast labyrinth of stalls and shops. The old mixes with the new. Cheap plastic toys lie among handcrafted jewellry. A Soviet-era samovar sits next to the latest smartphones. Fresh meat hangs from hooks beside heavy winter coats. Here, you could buy both a feast and a fortune. Some say you could even buy a ballistic missile. That is probably a joke.

Men and women move quickly, haggle, jostle, watch. A hand slips into a pocket and is gone before its owner notices. Pickpockets belong here as naturally as the merchants. So do the rumors. For centuries, Privoz has been a place to meet, talk, and trade. Stories flow here like the tides of the Black Sea.

Odessa is beautiful, even now. The sea stretches beyond the port, gleaming silver under the winter sky. The air carries the scent of salt and a faint trace of diesel. There are fewer ships than before. But life goes on. A boy kicks a ball against a crumbling wall. A woman feeds pigeons near the opera house, scattering crumbs from between her woolen gloves.

The Potemkin Stairs bear marks from Russian bombing.

Not far from here, near the famous Potemkin Stairs, stands an empty pedestal where Catherine II once towered. The statue is gone. The people voted, and the monument was moved to an art museum. It is understandable. The empress of the Russian Empire has no place here anymore. Tallinn once did the same. After the War of Independence, the statue of Peter I was taken down and melted into coins.

Now, Ukrainian flags stand on the vacant pedestal. At its base, photos of fallen soldiers. Grieving families have left them here. History is carved into stone through sorrow. Memory will endure for centuries.

Yet, just a few blocks away, Stalinist plaques of honor still remain. The names of Soviet heroes untouched, undisturbed. And yet – Catherine, despite her grandeur and historical value, had to go.

History’s contradictions persist.

Foundation of the removed monument to Catherine II.

By the city’s main avenue, beside a golden statue of Buddha, a welder works, sending sparks flying with a deafening roar. When he notices a passerby trying to take a photo, he glares. Why disturb his blessed peace?

In a neighboring building, a military shop sells patches embroidered with the words “Bilshe razu ne vmerati.“ The phrase means “No more times shall we die again.” It could be translated in many ways, but in this context, it stands as the complete opposite of the West’s carefree “YOLO”.

And so, thoughts drift toward ancient wisdom. The orientalist Märt Läänemets’ lectures on Buddhism at Tartu University come to mind, along with Siddhartha Gautama’s final, all-knowing smile before stepping into Nirvana.

One can only hope that the same peace finds the fallen soldiers – wherever their souls may rest.

Evening falls. Streetlights flicker on, casting long shadows. We sit once more by the warm fireplace, sinking deep into the softness of our chairs. Music drifts through the room, enveloping us, settling into us. Hearts and minds unwind. The weight and anguish fade.

The frontline soldiers forget, for a moment, the weeks spent in dark bunkers, where shells howled overhead and the air was thick with smoke and screams. Nights of bad dreams, days of battle, they dissolve for an instant. There are no more trenches to leap over, no thoughts fixated on weapons, men, or the cold, ruthless logic of survival. No more calculations of death.

Here, by the fire, those hours seem unreal. A fever dream, a half-forgotten apparition.