Pestilog

Odessa Catacombs

I played hookie today. I got to the center and had a headache and was sooo tired. I faked a migrane and went home after about an hour. And I came home to find that a group of kids from the hostel were planning a trip this afternoon to the catacombs. Which was awesome. But I'll get to that in a sec.

This is the van that I have spent a few days on this week:

It runs ten different routes, two a day monday through friday with an outreach worker and a doctor on every route.

Here are a few shots from the beautiful neighborhood around the community center:




So, onto the catacombs. There are catacombs under Odessa. They run in a tangled labyrinth under the whole city. They were dug out over 130 years ago when builders were quarrying limestone along the black sea, and are estimated to be a total of 3000 km of unmapped tunnels. One fact that people often give you is that these catacombs are the reason why Odessa has no subway system, because they really do span underneath the entire city and beyond.

A couple from Switzerland who is staying in my room organized this trip, and brought a long me, and several other guests from Finland, Japan, Argentina, and Hood River, Oregon of all places. We got ourselves a humble translator and a bus which took us from the train station to a village on the north outskirts of Odessa, where there is a manned opening to the tunnels.



The entrance was all dressed up, with giant stairs down from ground level and a wide open entrance, which soon dissolved into tiny narrow passageways and small yellow light bulbs every 50 ft or so lighting our way.

We also had Svetlana, our ancient, Russian tour guide who walked around with a flashlight, talking in Russian over a microphone that was so loud we couldnt hear, despite the fact that she had been told that none of us spoke Russian. It was hysterical.



These catacombs are particularly important to Odessa's history, because during World War 2, nearly 2000 Russian partisans lived in these tunnels to hide from the Nazis. That large group lived in these caverns underground in hiding, barricading the entrances and sneaking food from the surface while undercover, for over two and a half years.





We find an old gun, the 18 yr old from Oregon picks it up, and the camera phones fly out of pockets at lightning speed:



There is a small 'museum' at the exit, which we had to climb up 5 flights of stairs to get back out to. The most prized item in the museum's collection is a handwritten letter by Fidel Castro which he wrote for the catacombs during his visit here in 1986. It speaks of the noble Soviet city, which protected its people and its way of life from the aggression of the fascists.


Eternal Glory my Comrades!

Labels: CEU photos, odessa, travel, ukraine

posted by Veruka2 @ 6:39 PM