A Black Sea Cruise: From the Ukraine with Love

First, it was the mythical Jason, who crossed the Black Sea
leading the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece. After that
came Greeks, Romans, Avars, Arabs, Huns, Scythians, Mongols,
and the Ottoman Turks, to name a few. They, of course, were
not looking for the Golden Fleece, but had bigger fish to fry.
They were expanding empires, pillaging cities, ravaging
citizenry, and, of course, slaughtering infidels. Depending on
whom you were talking to, the infidels were the Greeks,
Romans, Avars, Arabs, Huns, Scythians, Mongols, and the
Ottoman Turks, to name a few.

In light of the fact that the Black Sea has been at the crossroads
of many of the world's most formidable and bloody military
campaigns, it is probably sacrilegious to point out that if you
were in the middle of the Black Sea a few months back, you
might have observed a spanking new luxury cruise ship
steaming northward on its way to the old Soviet ports of Odessa
and Yalta. Upon closer inspection, you might detect a couple of
American travel writers sipping champagne and trying to take in
as much Black Sea lore as was humanly possible.

“I'll bet you don't know where Jason found the Golden Fleece,"
my wife asked. She knew I hadn't the foggiest idea. “Colchis,"
she answered her own rhetorical question. “It's at the eastern
end of the Black Sea in present day Georgia."

Recently, my wife and I took a cruise of the Black Sea to the old
Soviet ports of Odessa and Yalta, nowadays Ukrainian ports,
aboard the Renaissance III cruise ship. It is one of a new
generation of all-suite cruise ships that specialize in what is
called “soft adventure." You know, you follow in the steps of
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Kublai Khan during the day and return to the ship for Roast Duck
au vin blanc in the evening.

The Black Sea itself is an adventure. I mean, here's an

aberration of nature that teems with life just beneath the
surface, but below 400 feet becomes a dead zone due to the
high concentration of hydrogen sulfide from fissures beneath the
sea. Whatever falls into the sea, sinks down into the lower
depths and, because there is no oxygen, does not decay. And
this process has been going on for thousands of years.

Naturally, the Black Sea is not black at all. The story goes that
the name comes from the fact that in Turkey, which lies on the
Black Sea's southern coast, the strong winter winds blow down
from the north, swirling up the sea and giving it the appearance
of a cold or “black sea."

We, like Jason managed to cross the Black Sea, but instead of
finding the Golden Fleece, we found the “Pearl of the Black Sea,"
Odessa. Odessa is known to many Americans as the city where
many of the great Soviet violinists were born; Jascha Heifetz,
David and Igor Oistrakh, to rattle off a few.

As soon as we cleared customs, we were met by our Odessa

Intourist guide, Tanya, an intelligent, attractive young woman
who was a sharp contrast to the stern, defensive Soviet guide
we had known ten years earlier in Leningrad. At that time our
guide couldn't let up extolling the virtues of the Communist
state while constantly reminding us of the many inequities in our
own society.

“I could never live in America with your homeless people and

racial problems," our earlier Leningrad guide would tell us.

On this visit it was different.

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“We have to learn market economy from you Americans," Tanya

told us. “We don't know free enterprise."

“America is best," people on the street would tell us. “Nothing

works here. We have nothing."

“We have our problems, too," I said. “We have our homeless
people and our racial problems."

“No, no," they insisted in broken English, “America perfect."

We had read that Odessa is one of the truly beautiful, romantic

cities of the world and we couldn't agree more. We strolled with
Tanya down shaded cobblestone thoroughfares, amidst a
montage of Baroque architecture. Although many of the
buildings need some cosmetic repair, Tanya told us the city is
undergoing a massive face-lift for its 200th birthday in 1994.

Odessa is the third largest city in the Ukrainian after Kiev and
Kharkov and has always been a melting pot and haven for
political exiles. During the past century it has been a center for
emigre Jews, Greeks, and Bulgarians. Scientists will know
Odessa as the home of Dmitri Mendeleev, the chemist that
developed the periodic table.

After completing our walking tour, Tanya took us to an official

government store where Westerners can buy hand painted
Babushka dolls, caviar, bear caps, and Cokes. An exquisite hand-
painted, nested Babushka doll containing twelve smaller dolls
sold for $750 in the government store, while outside young men
sold poorer quality ones for $30. Street hawking was illegal a
few years ago, but now it is only frowned upon. I asked Tanya
what she thought of the young men working the streets outside
the government store.
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“They're unemployed," she told me. “They're hooligans."

“I thought you said you had to learn free enterprise and market
economy," I said. I told her that in the United States they would
probably be called entrepreneurs.

“You're probably right," she said, “But I still don't like them."

One of the young men on the street told me that the real thing
that bugs the old Communists is the fact that the “hooligans"
make a lot of money. “We're called the Russian Mafia," he
laughed.

It has been said that Russia is a land of contradictions. This

entered the minds of many cruise passengers when Tanya took
us to hear the Soviet Army Chorus (still called by that name) and
to see a troupe of Ukrainian folk dancers. One is bewildered,
unable to resolve the enigma of how a country can create such
beautiful music and dance, yet can't produce an adequate
supply of soap and toilet paper for its people.

After the concert most people in the audience tried to purchase

a tape of the army chorus. Naturally, there was none to be
found.

“We still don't know free enterprise," Tanya told me. “We can't
even buy tapes of the army chorus. You can buy them in
America."

That night the Renaissance III cruised eastward along the

Crimea, a peninsula that sticks out into the Black Sea, to the
resort town of Yalta where in 1945, the heads of government of
the three allied powers, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met to
determine the spoils of war.
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Most students of military combat and literature know the Crimea

as the location of the most foolhardy action ever to take place in
British military history. During the Crimean War in 1854 as a
result of a confusion of military orders, a brigade of light cavalry
charged directly into the mouths of Russian guns, thereby killing
most of the helpless soldiers. The incident was memorialized in
Alfred Tennyson's epic poem, Charge of the Light Brigade; Half a
league: half a league: half a league onward, ...

Nowadays, Yalta is the major summer resort for Russian and

Ukrainian citizens with “Greater Yalta," a complex of resorts and
holiday spas stretching for nearly 50 miles along the Crimean
coast.

The next morning we arrived at Yalta and unlike past

experiences in the Soviet Union, we cleared customs and got our
visas stamped by smiling officials in a few seconds. We then
headed for the boardwalk to visit with as many people that
would talk with us. Ten years earlier in Leningrad, people would
turn their heads and hurry off when approached. Now, in the age
of glasnost we were often surrounded and asked our opinions on
everything from the crisis in the Middle East to whether
Madonna wears a bra. I told them I wasn't knowledgeable on the
former, but on the latter it was a definite yes, but in her case
she wears hers on the outside.

I tried to buy a “Yalta" T-shirt but there were none to be found.

The only shirts I saw were Bart Simpson ones (Don`t Have a
Cow, Man) or ones declaring that elemental truth, “I Love N.Y."

Becoming weary of the many people that would crowd around

us asking about life in America, my wife and I found a secluded
bench and sat down for a breather. Sitting next to us was an old
woman who was busily reading the comic section of a
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newspaper. Every so often she would burst out laughing and

would show the cartoon to us and explain it. We couldn't
understand a word she said but we laughed along anyway. After
a while she got up and nodded good-by. Knowing how consumer
goods are in such short supply, I offered her a pack of
cigarettes. She thanked us to the point of embarrassment and
then sat back down. She then opened her purse and took out a
tiny box and gave it to my wife. My wife objected, but she closed
my wife's hand around the box. She then thanked us again for
the cigarettes and disappeared in the crowd. After she had
gone, we opened the box and found two tiny earrings. Each was
inscribed with the message, “With Love."

That night, as the Renaissance III headed back across the Black
Sea to Istanbul, we stood on the hind deck and watched the
lights of Yalta slip below the horizon. It didn't take a wise person
to realize that from an economic point of view things were not
well in the old Soviet Union. However, we also thought we
detected signs of hope. One of the young men that worked for
Intourist told us that he planned on going into business for
himself and planned on running his own tours for the visiting
cruise ships.

“I could give better tours than Intourist at half the cost," he said.
“However, I do not have money to get started." He told us he
hoped to get started by borrowing money from a cruise
company. One of the “hooligans" that was selling Babushka dolls
to tourists outside the government store told us he wanted to
buy a T-shirt machine and start selling T-shirts to American
tourists. These seemed like small potatoes, but with the rise of a
new generation, changes are in the air.

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