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With sea off-limits, Odessa rallies home-front war effort
Odessa has so far escaped capture but Russia warns that any ship venturing into its surrounding waters can expect to be met by its cannons.
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Swimmers bathe in the Danube river next to anti-tank obstacles on the beach near Izmail, in the Odessa region on June 14, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP/Oleksandr Gimanov)
O
lga Jarova points to a nice spot on the restaurant terrace where President Volodymyr Zelensky sat on his visits to Odessa, Ukraine's Black Sea port now under de facto Russian blockade.
Before the invasion, Datcha, the restaurant that Jarova manages in a 19th-century stately home, mirrored the atmosphere in this historic city of sailors founded by Catherine the Great: nostalgic and carefree.
Odessa has so far escaped capture but Russia warns that any ship venturing into its surrounding waters can expect to be met by its cannons.
Kyiv mined the harbour as a preventative measure after the invasion began.
The city, a multicultural crossroads of a million inhabitants, has found itself isolated, forced to turn away from the sea and become more inward looking.
"Turbot, red mullet, goby... 80 percent of our fish used to come from the Black Sea," Jarova told AFP.
"But now offshore fishing is banned."
