“Odessa is Odessa” “Odessa is different.” Those are the kinds of things I’ve heard from both other
Ukranians and Odessans themselves.
The first time I visited Odessa, it was on April 1; the day that entire city comes out to
play, celebrating April Fools Day with funny hats, satirical floats and a
general good time. So I knew it
was different.
And sure enough, just like our Kyiv and Donetsk
conversations were different from each other, this one was also different.
Because of Odessa’s history and its status as a major port, this city is home
to dozens, if not hundreds, of different ethnicities and nationalities. (For a great look at Odessa’s
colorful history, read
Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams
by Charles King).
Hanna Shelest, head of the NGO PIC, our Odessan partner, had
a particular interest in working with us to engage the different cultural
groups in the city and reached out to Yaroslava Reznik, Head of the Department of National Minorities of Odessa Region State Administration. And so our conversation here was
held at the Bulgarian Cultural Center, one of several similar centers in the city.
We reached the ornate meeting room by walking up past portraits of somber Bulgarians
hung along the stairway, but our
conversation proved anything but somber.
We were joined by representatives from many communities here
in Odessa: Ukrainians, Bulgarians,
Byelorussians, Moldovans, Germans, Indians, Armenians, and more. It proved a great place to
collect stories about the food that made memories for so many different people.
We talked a bit about the foods that are Odessan, which are
the same foods that many Jewish Americans associate with their own family
traditions—a fish like gefilte fish;
chopped liver, and more.
And the new foods also came into play, particularly as groups
intermarried, and a new bride learned to make her husband’s favorite dish,
while sharing her own traditions.
To me, one of the exchanges that symbolized the Pickle Project's efforts to
do something different, to share our thoughts, ideas, beliefs and hopes by
talking about food, came here in Odessa.
An ethnographer came with his students. As he joined my small group, he listened for a bit, and then spoke up to say that we were
doing this all wrong, that it was not scientific! As he explained exactly why it wasn’t scientific, I looked
at the faces around me, who
previously had been actively listening, laughing and sharing family
stories—multiple generations, multiple ethnicities, multiple beliefs. And their looks were polite, but with a bit of impatience and annoyance.
Ukraine is still a place where, in many situations,
“experts” are revered. And it was
surprising—and a bit thrilling-- to watch these participants realize that they,
not the ethnographer, were the “experts.” That their stories, their perspectives, their beliefs, were
the strength of the conversation. No matter where you live, or where your family originated, the ability to share your experiences through meaningful conversations with a larger circle is one small way in which civil societies are built.
So from the light coming through the pear trees to the
stuffed peppers made by a girl in love,
Odessa’s conversation will always remind me of the powerful connections
food can make, no matter where we're from.
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