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In just one week, Russia launched dozens of missiles and drones into the Odessa region. None struck so deeply as the one that destroyed the cathedral, which lies at the heart of the city’s notoriously romantic history and its deep roots in Ukrainian and Russian culture.
“I am a refugee from Kharkiv. I endured that hell and came to sunny Odessa, the pearl, the heart of our Ukraine,” said Khlabova, who has lived in the country for 40 of her 50 years.
She still has a scar on her neck from the third day of the war, when her apartment was hit. On the fourth day, I fled to Odessa.
Now, she’s making the quick trip home to Kharkiv to pick up winter clothes so she can wait out the war in Ireland, “because here we’re not protected for one second, in any city.”
“At any given moment, it could just hit and rip your whole body apart,” she said. “After the war is over—and I think Ukraine will beat this filth, these vampires—I’ll come home. I’ll come back no matter what.”
Since Ukraine gained its independence from Moscow in 1991, Odessa has viewed itself differently from the country’s other major cities because of its long, conflicted history and outlook that has extended far beyond its borders.
Odessa’s past is intertwined with some of Russia’s most revered figures, including Catherine the Great, author Leo Tolstoy and poet Anna Akhmatova.
Its ports were key to the international agreement last year that allowed Ukraine and Russia to ship their grain to the rest of the world. Its Orthodox cathedral belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate. Its population largely speaks Russian. And — at least until the Kremlin illegally annexed neighboring Crimea in 2014 — its beaches were beloved by Russian tourists.
In the first weeks of the war, rumors from Kremlin propaganda spread throughout the city: Moscow would never hit the historic center, the mayor had loaded a boat full of flowers to greet Russian soldiers, and the silent majority of the population was waiting for Russian “liberation”.
They were liars.
“To this day, if you read and monitor Russian channels, they are all absolutely convinced that we are waiting for them here,” said Hannah Schelst, a political and security researcher who grew up in Odessa and whose father is a port manager.
Odessa’s regional infrastructure was repeatedly damaged by Russia during the winter, unlike its port, which was key to the Black Sea Grain Initiative that allowed agricultural products to be shipped safely from both countries to feed people around the world.
The region’s silos were full when Russia pulled out of the agreement in mid-July. Missiles and drones struck the next day, targeting storage sites, transportation infrastructure, and random buildings. Most of the strikes were repulsed by Ukrainian air defenses, but every day a handful of people managed to get past them.
Last week’s attacks were the first time that the historic city center of Odessa had been bombed since the war began.
Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov was vocal in an angry video message addressed to Russians after Sunday’s strike on the cathedral, showing rescue workers carefully removing a damaged icon from the rubble.
“If you only knew how much Odessa hates you. Not only does he hate you. He despises you. You fight little children, the Orthodox Church. Your missiles fall even on cemeteries,” he said. “You should hardly know us Odessans. It won’t break us, only make us angrier.”
Another missile landed in the House of Scientists, a mansion that once belonged to the Tolstoy family and has been turned into an institution uniting scholars and researchers. A third hit administrative buildings and apartments.
The targets were 200 meters from the port. Shelest believes the cathedral was hit by accident, but that’s little solace amid the devastation.
Since Catherine the Great turned Odessa into an international seaport in 1794, the city’s identity has been anchored in the sea, cosmopolitan tolerance, and an innate sense of humor. It had the largest concentration of Jews in Europe, who before a series of pogroms made up about a quarter of the population, and large communities of Greek and Italian seafarers whose descendants remain to this day.
A week of attacks has shaken those foundations for Irina Gretz, who counts at least three generations of family in the city.
“Every morning, I go to the sea to witness the sunrise. But today, I didn’t have the strength to go to the sea because we didn’t sleep all night. You see, we haven’t slept all week,” said Gerets, who decided instead to visit each bombing site on Sunday.
It began in the cathedral, the center of life in Odessa. The original structure was destroyed under Joseph Stalin in 1936 as part of his campaign against religion. When Ukraine gained independence, the population took a box to return it to its original state. In 2010, the new building was consecrated by Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Since then, Kirill, whose church is allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has justified the war in Ukraine.
Archbishop Viktor Bykov, vicar of the Odessa diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, wrote in an open letter to Kirill: “Every missile that arrives today on the territory of Ukraine is perceived by its inhabitants as a blessing” for their children.
The bitter pilgrimage of the Grits had less to do with religion than with pilgrimage, and many others made the same journey on Sunday. Some attended prayers outside the damaged cathedral. More of them arrived to remove debris, than to enjoy the famous beaches despite the summer sun setting.
“This is my city,” said Grits, “it is a part of me, it is my soul, it is my heart.”
Then, overcome with anger, she suddenly turned to Ukrainian: “Odessa will never be part of Russia.”
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