As the sun set over Arcadia, an area of beach clubs and bars on the outskirts of Odesa, a group of four friends in brightly coloured bikinis giggled as they towelled off after emerging from a dip in the Black Sea. At the nearby Prosecco Bar, two elderly men sipped sparkling wine from plastic flutes; at Ibiza, a seafront nightclub, a DJ played house beats.
It was possible for a moment to imagine that this was just the start of a normal summer night in this southern Ukrainian resort city, which usually draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, and where the partying used to go on until breakfast.
But an hour later the bars shut and, soon after, the city’s residents were told to head to bomb shelters for a fourth successive night, the culmination of a week in which Russian forces pounded the city with hypersonic missiles and drones in repeated attacks aimed at destroying Odesa’s grain exporting facilities.
This week has been the most trying for Odesa since the nervous first days of Putin’s full-scale war on Ukraine, and the night-time terror made for a particularly incongruous contrast with the vestiges of summer resort life that remain in the beach areas and in the city’s impressive historical centre.
“There are two types of people,” said Olha Rohozhnykova, a 34-year-old English teacher who was out on Thursday evening in the soupy summer air, taking what she described as her “daily mental health walk” past the bars and beaches of Arcadia.
“There are those who are trying to save every penny to spend when better days come, and those who want to spend everything and have fun because maybe these are their last days.”
With venues such as Ibiza bar, Hawaii Aquapark and Santorini Cafe, Arcadia has always been in part about escapism, but the war has given that urge a more pressing edge.
“It’s hard to call this a tourist season, it’s more about internally displaced people, or people who are coming here to breathe some sea air and at least have some kind of change of scenery,” said Odesa’s mayor, Gennadiy Trukhanov.
After last summer’s beach season was cancelled due to the mining of beaches to prevent a Russian amphibious landing, city authorities deployed anti-mine nets on several beaches this year to allow swimming. The plan had to be cancelled after the Kakhovka dam explosion in June washed debris including animal carcasses and sewage down the Dnipro River and into the Black Sea.
“Our specialists tell us it’s still much too dirty for swimming,” said Trukhanov. He conceded, however, that the police had little power to stop the hundreds of people who were ignoring the rules on the city’s beaches this week, saying it would be unfair to arrest people who were desperate for small doses of joy in their lives.
Volodymyr, 27, who was sipping sparkling wine on an outdoor terrace with his girlfriend, Olena, had come from a village just outside the city of Kherson that was constantly being shelled, he said.
“We came for a week just to see the sea, to relax, and to get drunk together,” he said.
They did not choose the best week to visit. On Monday, Russia announced it was pulling out of the Black Sea grain initiative, which had allowed grain to be shipped from Odesa to markets across the world, and promised to destroy the city’s port infrastructure. Not long after, Onix missiles, designed to target ships, were raining down on the city, hitting warehouses, grain infrastructure and damaging other buildings in the process.
At least two people died in the early hours of Thursday, in strikes that shook buildings across the city centre. Later in the morning, rescuers removed a body from the smouldering wreck of a building near the port. In the afternoon, an apocalyptic thunderstorm brought giant hailstones hammering down on the city and some central streets were briefly transformed into rivers, adding to the sense of unease.
And yet, in the evening, the sun reemerged and with it came strolling families and teenagers doing photoshoots for Instagram. Next to the fountain outside Odesa’s grand 19th-century opera house, a group of teenage girls practised a cover version of a highly choreographed Japanese pop dance as their friend bobbed and weaved in front of them filming it.
As they tried yet another take, the wail of an air siren cut through the music. They stopped, briefly, asking a friend to keep an eye on local Telegram channels and let them know if they needed to run for cover. It soon became apparent that the direct threat to Odesa was over; the dancing continued.
The group trained every day, said 17-year-old Uliana, as there is fierce competition in Odesa for the crown of best K-Pop and J-Pop cover band. “We are trying to keep dancing, to keep our good mood despite everything that is going on,” she added. The group now adds captions about Russia’s awful war in Ukraine to their videos.
On the other side of the square, a mini excursion train had disgorged its last passengers for the day, mainly Ukrainians visiting Odesa from other cities or displaced by the war.
The excursion guide, Antonina, said she was “exhausted” after the previous nights but could not imagine ever leaving her beloved home city. She declined to give her age – “In Odesa, a woman is as old as she tells you she is” – but did let on that she had been guiding tours of the city since 1971. Even back in the days of Leonid Brezhnev’s rule, Odesa had more foreign visitors and more summer life than it does in this grim year of war, she said.
“There used to be a lot more humour in my tour. Odesa is a city of jokes and jokers after all. But how can you joke when people are dying nearby?” she said, with a gentle shake of her head.
By the end of a week of sleepless nights, many people were agitated and exhausted, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious from the laughter and drinking in the bars of Arcadia.
“I haven’t slept for three days, I feel like a zombie. I just sit awake in the night holding the cats and hope that nothing hits nearby,” said Rohozhnykova. “I hope tonight will finally be quiet, but I imagine our crazy neighbour has other ideas,” she added.
