The four-man crew of the CB-90 patrol boat traversing Odesa Bay is on the lookout for the sea mines, sea drones, and Shahed aerial drones that Russia regularly sends toward this Black Sea port city.
Russia’s aim: to disrupt life and dishearten the population.
“If we spot a sea mine, we seek permission to shoot at it. If a Shahed’s coming in, it might be our guy who fires to take it out,” says Serhii, captain of the naval patrolling unit, gesturing with an upward tilt of the head to the seaman manning the boat’s machine gun.
Why We Wrote This
Odesa, home to a Ukrainian seaport that is a critical link in the global food security chain, endured its worst winter of Russian attacks since the war began, then prepared for a vibrant summer with a determination not just to survive but to build a better future.
Noting that his unit’s most active patrols generally take place at night, Serhii (his last name was withheld for security reasons) says: “I guess you could say we are the night watchmen for Odesa. But day and night, we are out here doing our part for the port’s security and protecting the city’s economic life.”
Surveying the centuries-old city arrayed along the coastline, from the historic center and port to the beaches and upscale apartment buildings to the south, the engineer turned naval captain sums up his vessel’s purpose: “We’re out here every day so that, even with the war, Odesa can get on with life.”
Having endured its worst winter since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with attacks on civilian infrastructure resulting in scores of deaths, sustained power outages, and destruction of grain silos and other port facilities, Odesa today is trying not just to survive, but to progress.
“Unfortunately, the war reality we are living in has become our new normal life. We have adapted to it, and, every day, we are working to make life safer and better within this new normality,” says Oleksandr Filatov, first deputy mayor of Odesa. “At the same time, this effort to adapt quickly to a new reality has led us to think strategically about the Odesa we want to see after the war.”
Home to the largest port complex in a country that for decades has been one of the world’s breadbaskets, Odesa is a key link in the global food security network. In good years (when the war hasn’t disrupted harvests or Black Sea shipping), Odesa provides up to half of the grains delivered by the U.N. World Food Programme.
The rough winter put a damper on the city’s morale, but, at the same time, the resilience and determination to persevere that some here call “the Odesa spirit” is widely on display. That’s especially true with the beginning of the summer tourist season, which traditionally sees the city’s restaurants and hotels filled.
Money to be made
At the beachfront Cottage Lanzheron hotel, contractor Mykola Todorov directs his crew as they repair the building’s streetside facade,which was blasted away in a late April drone attack.
“I know people talk about an Odesa spirit, and it may be some of that, but honestly I think it’s about making money,” says Mr. Todorov. “The owner wouldn’t be repairing this if he didn’t think he could make up for it over the big summer season. And then for these guys,” he adds, gesturing toward his work crew, “it’s about putting food on the table.”
Pieces of drone wing littered the sandy beach along the hotel’s seafront, while on the entrance side, a crater marked the spot where the Shahed slammed into the ground, blasting out the hotel’s windows and glass entrance.
“People lost a lot of hope over the winter,” says Mr. Todorov, noting that his brother had to sell an apartment “to be able to eat.” This spring, he says, more of his young male workers stayed home on days they feared they might run into the conscription police.
Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor
“But then we have rebuilding projects like this that in a way are a sign of hope,” the contractor says. “This is the owner saying he has faith that people will come to Odesa this summer, and he will make money again.”
The story of Cottage Lanzheron rings true for Oleksandr Babich, an Odesa history buff who ran a city tours agency until he joined the military after Russia’s invasion.
“Odesa was founded by traders going back to the Greeks and the Turks, and throughout history, the motivation for developing a great port here and building a city has been the same,” Mr. Babich says. “It’s always been about making money.”
In that way, he says, Odesa is like other European port cities built on commerce – he names Venice, Naples, and Marseille – where fortunes were made. In the case of Odesa, it’s the grains and seed oils of the Ukrainian steppes that have been the draw.
Indeed, if Odesa’s port – in reality a complex of three ports – has continued to operate and even thrive amid war, it’s because the world’s food markets crave the products that ship through it. And because people can make money doing it, says Dmytro Barinov, president of Ukrport, the Association of Ports of Ukraine.
“Every day, there are 50, 60, 70 vessels waiting to come into our ports, despite the risks of a random attack, the high insurance rates, and what might seem like other discouraging factors,” he says. “The best explanation I can give is that the business is still profitable.”
And for all the damage and suffering the war has caused for the port and its people, Mr. Barinov says it has also forced the learning of some useful lessons.
“The war has required a better organization of loading and unloading of the vessels, a better overall organization of port activity, even more consideration of worker safety, and better coordination with the navy on security issues,” he says. “We’ve developed a confidence that we can operate in wartime that will serve us even after the war.”
Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor
The “Odesa Mama” vibe
At the same time, there is a special spirit about Odesa that has allowed it to weather the storm of war better than other cities might have, Mr. Babich, the history buff, believes. It’s this spirit that explains the flourishing of a distinct “Odesa humor” that confronts hardship with laughter, he says. And which explains “Odesa Mama,” the term Odesans use to vaunt their city’s warm and comforting vibe.
“‘Odesa Mama’ was what greeted visitors coming in at our airport before the full-scale invasion shut it down,” he says, “but the ‘Odesa Mama’ spirit didn’t disappear [during] the war.”
At the white-columned City Hall, just steps from Odesa’s signature Beaux-Arts opera house, Deputy Mayor Filatov doesn’t try to minimize the struggles of the past winter.
“Starting from Dec. 12, we had almost daily attacks on our city until mid-March,” he says. Thousands of apartments in hundreds of buildings were without heat and water. “Not even one of our power stations was left untouched by the attacks,” he adds.
More than 300 residential buildings were damaged.
But as depressing as Russia’s winter onslaught against Odesa was, Mr. Filatov says, it also mustered a resolve to carry on and rebuild “smart” – to prepare as much as possible for the next winter.
The city has drawn up a “resilience plan” that includes wrapping repaired electrical stations in anti-drone mesh and providing seed money for residential buildings to install solar panels.
“Our main task over the coming months will be to help the apartment buildings in our city become as autonomous as possible with alternative means of generating heat and electricity,” the deputy mayor says.
Grain silos at the ports are being encased in anti-drone grids.
Even as Russia’s strikes on the city have increased year to year since 2023, new businesses have opened and – perhaps most promising for Mr. Filatov – housing starts over the past two years have jumped. The aggregate square footage “of new housing units more than doubled since 2024,” he says, “so that tells you something.”
Population regrowth
One thing the new housing points to is a recovering population. Before the war, officials bragged about leading a city of more than 1 million residents, Mr. Filatov says. That figure plummeted by several hundred thousand after the 2022 invasion.
But a recovery began in 2024, first with an estimated 200,000 displaced Ukrainians moving in from more threatened front-line cities, especially Kherson. Last year, officials started noticing signs that Odesans who had fled were also beginning to return. The result is an estimated population of about 850,000 today.
Odesa’s historic district even saw a McDonald’s open this spring, a short walk from the famous Potemkin Stairs that lead to the port.
“We got some resistance from residents who didn’t think it was an appropriate location for a McDonald’s,” the deputy mayor notes, “but we saw in other European cities that it could be done tastefully – and we see it as a sign of business confidence in Odesa.”
Dozens of Odesa’s new small businesses have been opened by displaced Ukrainians, especially those who came from Kherson, about 130 miles to the east.
Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor
One of those businesses is Magrest, a company that designs, manufactures, and installs storefront fixtures. The war has uprooted owners Aliona and Oleksandr Kovalchuk twice: first from the now-Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in 2014, when they moved their fledgling business to Kherson, and then in 2022, after five months of Russian occupation that made business almost impossible and prompted several employees to move abroad.
The Kovalchuks chose Odesa, and both say they are glad they did. They arrived with their kids and six employees, and four years later, they’ve grown to a staff of 18 in production, sales, and accounting.
“The thing is, we are crazy optimists, and we’re finding that fits pretty well with Odesa,” says Aliona. For his part, Oleksandr says they lived through such “extreme conditions” in both Donetsk and Kherson that the past winter in Odesa didn’t seem so difficult.
“We know it was terrible for a lot of people here,” he says, “but I also think our past experiences gave us an ability to adapt and left us better prepared to figure out how to overcome the hardships.”
The couple say that, after several years in their new home city, they’ve decided there really is some truth to the “Odesa Mama” stereotype. “Sometimes, it can feel like you’re getting a hug from your mom,” Aliona says.
But both say they value at least as much the other qualities they’ve found in the people, including a flexibility and dynamism they have a hunch derive from Odesa’s history and geography as a sunny southern port city.
Walking through one of Magrest’s workshops, where employees operate laser saws and 3D printers, Oleksandr says the company’s next goal is to expand into producing home office furnishings.
“We want to continue to grow and give our clients what they need to live and work better,” he says. “We’re finding Odesa to be a good place to do that.”
Oleksandr Naselenko supported reporting for this article.