wh THE PLACE(S) OF MOLDOV ANKA IN THE MAKING OF ODESSA cu' Tanya Richartbwn, Cambridge University, UK Sq an On a late fall day in 2002, Alexandra, a relations" (Massey 1994: 155). Three elements are ou lawyer in her late forties of mixed German, Polish interwoven in the concept of place: locale, the ce and Russian ancestry. was showing me the settings in which social relations are constituted; ar courtyard where she used to live in Moldovanka. a location, the effects upon locales of social and in district in Ukraine's southern port city of Odessa. economic processes operating at wider scales; and 0 One building was crumbling. All the residents had sense of place, the local structure of feeling d moved away except two elderly women still (Agnew 1993: 263). Although Moldovanka waiting for the city authorities to provide them occupies an ambiguous place in the Odessan ( with a new flat. Most residents of the adjacent imaginary, I argue that its symbolic centrality can building (constructed in 1861) where Alexandra be attributed to its construction in, or relation to, 3 I had grown up had also moved out.' She reminisced high culture- most notably in Isaak Babel's about her Russian, Ukrainian, German, Jewish and Odessa Stories. Moldovanka is increasingly being Tatar neighbours and the positive and negative codified as a district in which it is possible to sense sides of courtyard life. Alexandra had taken on the "real Odessa" and witness its kolorit in places cases of Moldovankan clients whose roof caved in such as courtyards and the Starokonnoi Market. I to defend their rights to replacement housing. She suggest that the qualities idealized nowadays about commented: "Many of the buildings in the district such places- solidarity, kinship-like ties, tolerance should be torn down since they can't be restored of ethnic diversity. amicable conversational anyway. There are some plans. however, to make a exchanges- are partly a response to newly kind of park (zapovednik). After all, without emerging inequalities and cleavages, demographic Moldovanka, there would be no Odessan legend.'' changes as a result of out- and in-migration. The kolorit associated with the images and places in The notion of Odessa as a distinct place­ Moldovanka's is shared ard regenerated through captured with the phrase "Odessan legend" - the spatial practices of touring which mobilize prevails today despite radical political, economic historical and fictional events associated the and demographic ruptures in the 201h century that district's urban landscape. The production of transformed Odessa from the third most prominent Moldovanka becomes a prism for understanding city in the Russian Empire and a key node in Black not only how Odessans articulate their Sea trade routes, to a more marginal Soviet and distinctiveness vis a vis Ukraine and the world now Ukrainian sea port.~ The city is considered outside, but also how the interplay of local and "international," "multi-ethnic," "tolerant" and trans local historical processes (economic, social, often "Russian" and/or "Jewish" but "not literary) sediment in key images and practices of Ukrainian" by many residents and non-residents place. alike. Odessa's unique language and forms of sociality are often referred to as its kolorit, which History in Place can be glossed as colour, vibrancy, exuberance, or Moldovanka developed as a suburb exotic quality. Many Odessans attribute the beyond the 1824 boundary of Odessa's free port degradation and disappearance of the kolorit of boundary (Herlihy 1986: 273). Although some Odessa to being "cut off' from Russia as a result historians claim Moldovanka predates Odessa by of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainization about 30 years, others argue that it was settled policies,3 an imbalance between the outflow of after Odessa was founded. The former suggest that intellectuals and inflow of people from villages Moldovans who worked for the Ottomans in and small towns, and the emigration of Jews. building the fortress Yeni Dunia (New World) Drawing on fieldwork conducted in settled in the area in the late 1760s while the latter Odessa during 200 I /2002 and July 2005, this argue that a contingent of Moldovans, Greeks and article explores the production and reproduction of Albanians fleeing the Ottomans settled there Odessa's distinctiveness through the making of the between 1797 and 1802. At the beginning of the district Moldovanka as place. I treat place as a nineteenth century the territory that became process (Harvey 1993: 21 ), a historical production Moldovanka consisted of two settlements: the constituted by the interplay of the material, Bulgarian settlement Bulgarka, later called perceived and imagined (Lefebvre 1991 ), and Bugaevka; and Novaia Slobodka where "articulated moments in networks of social Moldovans were given relatively small plots on

Vnl ?' No.2 Fall 2005. Page: 72 which they built village-style houses and reputation for criminality where new migrants cultivated vineyards and gardens. Mikhailovskaia flocked (Herlihy 1986; Sylvester 1996, 200 I). Square was the centre of the Moldovan settlement Although some factories were built in the district and the site of the first Orthodox church (1820) prior to the October revolution many more were outside the centre of the city as well as of a built afterwards. However, although Moldovanka cemetery. Located nearby were military barracks was a suburb at the edge of Odessa even as late as and country houses of the city's wealthy residents, the 1930s, nowadays, given that Odessa has including the dacha of Richelieu. In the first third expanded considerably to the north and south, of the 19th century Moldovanka emerged as the spatially it is a relatively central district. dominant settlement. Moldovanka at the Margin and the Centre Architects who designed buildings in Odessa's central district (such as Boffo, Torichelli, Isaak Babel's image ofMoldovanka as a and Dalakva) also played a role in planning poor, crime-ridden district with larger-than-life Moldovanka. If the 1835 general plan is compared characters often stands for all of Odessa- it is the with a contemporary map, it is evident that the symbolic centre of the Odessan Myth (Cukierman grid-like network of Moldovankan streets, squares 1980). The Odessan Myth refers to the history and and lanes has remained largely unchanged development of a constellation of images and ideas (Dontsova 200 I: 74 ). Once Moldovanka was about the distinctiveness of Odessa among cities of included in the general city plan. it had to have the Russian Empire primarily, though not "approved facades" which were the responsibility exclusively, in Russian-language texts (Naidorf of the city architects. Although the blueprints for 200 I: 329).4 Although symbolically central to the the homes of ordinary residents were neither myth, the district has been geographically, complex nor highly varied, a "comfortable district socially, and economically marginal in relation to with character was constructed" (ibid: 80). the centre of the city (Sylvester 1996, 200 I), much Churches, civic institutions and more cumbersome like the faubourgs in nineteenth-century French multi-flat buildings that appeared later on, blended cities (Merriman 1991). Dontsova's book about in with the existing single story dwellings without Moldovanka argues for the district's symbolic diminishing their value (ibid: 80). Thus, after 1835 centrality in the city on the basis of the existence the suburb gradually transformed from a of important cultural institutions and architectural conglomerate of village-like settlements that monuments. The polarities of centre and margin included a few large plots held by richer surface often in comments about Moldovanka. as landowners to a suburb more urban in form. with Alexandra, some of whom stress the mythical and some the mundane. As the 19th century progressed, the population became more multi-ethnic. Although A consideration ofthe complicated and Bulgarskaia Street was originally settled by inseparable relationships between "high" and Bulgarians in the 1830s, by the end of the century "low" culture, centre and periphery, the physical the street's residents comprised Jews, Ukrainians, body and geographical space opens up possibilities Russians, Poles, Germans, Greeks, and Roma. for interpreting the relationship images of There were many churches- including a catholic Moldovanka to its perceived status as socially and cathedral -of architectural interest in Moldovanka, economically marginal (Stallybrass and White most of which were blown up in the 1930s. By the 1986: 2). Marginality is a relational condition end of the nineteenth century, Jews made up a whose meaning shifts when viewed by individuals significant part of the district's population as can from inside and outside the margins (Day, et al. be seen by the presence of eleven prayer houses 1999). The social definition of marginal places and and the relocation of the Jewish Hospital (founded spaces is often closely related to the categorization in 180 I) to the district in the 1820s during a of objects, practices, ideas and social relationships cholera epidemic. Moldovanka, despite its as belonging to "low culture" (Shields 1991: 5). concentration of Jews. "was in no sense a ghetto­ The politics of the process of symbolic exclusion a district where Jews were legally obligated or depends on "positional superiority ... which puts willingly chose to reside" (Herlihy 1986: 274; see the High in a whole series of possible relationships also Klier 2002). with the Low without ever losing the upper hand" (in Stallybrass and White 1986: 5). This allows a By the end of the century, Moldovanka series of ambivalent representations and had transformed from a mixed district of dachas relationships to the "low" or the "marginal" and an and villagers to a poor neighbourhood with a interlocking interdependency of the "high" on the

Vol. 23. No.2 Fall 2005, Page: 73 "low" as a result of which "the low-Other is of World War I Moldovanka was described as a despised and denied at the level of political "city of thieves" or "a city within a city" organization and social being whilst it is (Sylvester 200 I). Sylvester has argued that the instrumentally constitutive of the shared imaginary district was constructed in opposition to the centre repertoires of the dominant culture" (Stallybrass as part of the process of the consolidation of a and White 1986: 5). bourgeois identity in Odessa. Thinking in terms of the inter­ The notion that Moldovanka is a spatially relationships between "high" and "low," centre and socially distinct area persisted despite the and periphery illuminates not only the relationship introduction of Soviet policies aimed at leveling between the contradictory images of Moldovanka, such differences. When Alexandra's mother was but also the conditions in which these images are offered a flat in the centre she decided instead to produced~ namely, the historical moment of their remain in Moldovanka. "What would we do there production and the position of the writer producing with our simple faces?" she said. Throughout the them. I use the notions of high and low culture to 1960s and 70s Stepovaia Street in Moldovanka examine the social marginalization of the district served as a second Deribasovskaia Street where through the portrayal of the practices of residents would promenade. Although Odessans Moldovankan residents as "low" in relation to from all over the city would stroll on residents' behaviour of the city centre. At the same Deribasovskaia, only residents of Moldovanka time I explore the role of a high literary went to Stepovaia Street. Several people who representation in the creation of the idea that resided in and outside of the district noted that it district and its characters are the symbolic centre had its own fashion style and behavioural norms in ofthe Odessan Myth. In the sketches of place­ public places. Tatiana Dontsova recalled that images below, I describe how the district behaviour in movie theatres in Moldovanka alternately shifts from margin to centre in the city differed from that on the other side of along three different axes~ geographic, socio­ Staroportofrankovskaia Street. Audiences were economic and symbolic~ in relation to its boisterous, as adults would often bring wine to the manifestation as low or high culture. theatre. Sometimes a small band would play before the movie, while during the film people often A Distinct Place entered the theatre and called out the names of You think that there's only one Odessa? No. individuals they sought. Thus fashion, norms, There are several Odessas. It's something behaviour al'ld courtyard customs contributed to like afederation. The centre is one Odessa. the perception of Moldovanka as a distinct place Moldovanka is a second. Peresyp is a third. even in the late Soviet period. Slobodka, a fourth. There's still Bugaevka, Isaak Babel and Moldovanka Blizhnie Melnitsy ~but these are small autonomous oblasts. Individuals of all ages suggested I read Babel's stories "to understand Odessa." The brief Moldovanka is the direct opposite (?(the for a conference organized by the Migdal centre. Here poverty abounds. During the Community Centre for the 11 01h anniversary of years ofthe years (if the reaction people fled Babel's birth states with typical Odessan ~and where to? ... New York. People from hyperbole that ''Odessa made Babel" and Moldovanka would not settle for anything continues: "it can also be said that Babel made less. Odessa."5 When Babel's story as a writer and his To describe Moldovanka is to repeat Odessa Stories are considered in terms of the Babel. You'll end up describing the same relationship between "high" and "low" culture and thing just a great deal worse. In any case, their spatial and symbolic referents, the centrality this is an extraordinarily "koloritnyi" part of of his images in the Odessan Myth can be better the territory ofthe Odessanfederation. understood.

~Leonid Utesov Babel's writing needs to be placed in the context of pre-revolutionary Russian-Jewish Whereas Utesov used the language of the writing and Soviet Russian writing after the Soviet state~ federation, republic, oblast ~to revolution (Markish 1987: 175). He has been describe Moldovanka as a spatially and socially considered "the first Jewish writer to write from distinct area of the pre-revolutionary Odessa of his within Russian literature and to give the Jewish childhood, in press accounts prior to the outbreak milieu colour and depth" (Sicher 1995: 72). Prior Vol. 23, No.2 Fall 2005. Page: 74

( to Babel, "even if a Russian-Jewish writer Jewish merchant Tartakovskii and the accidental succeeded in attracting the attention of the Russian killing ofTartakovskii's clerk. The Father reading public ... he still remained outside the recounts Benia's marriage to Basia, the rotund bounds of Russian literature proper, perceived as daughter of the red-headed. one-eyed gangster an alien or exotic phenomenon" (Markish 1987: Froim Grach and the uniting of two bandit 173). Further, although Babel's attraction to families. The fourth story Liubka Cossack depicts marginal figures such as criminals as subjects for the formidable madam Liubka Schneeweiss his works may have been part of a broader Soviet nicknamed "The Cossack" for her size, strength literary interest in the criminal underworld and and ability to run an inn. Although Falen has trickster-like figures such as con-men (Falen 1974; characterized these tales as "primarily a Markish 1987), he may have partly identified with phenomenon of style and tone, experiments in them as marginal people (Rubin 2000). The figure narrative composition, and masterpieces in the use of criminal provided a way for Jewish writers to of colourful language," Briker has underscored the question certain social hierarchies and at the same importance of plot structures (Briker 1994: 117; time served as a kind of model of their own Falen 1974: 63). In particular, he has demonstrated activity: "Active "knee-breaking" or "black­ how the gangster raid served as an organizing marketeering" their way into an exclusive literary structure into which events of Jewish communal canon, they are outcasts and rebels who still "do life such as a wedding (The King) or a funeral business" with the system- and indeed they need (How It Was Done In Odessa) were incorporated. to, and must demand their right to do so" (Rubin Babel's commentators capture 2000: 8). Babel's status as a writer both reflects evocatively the features of his prose. Describing and complicates Stallybrass and White's his characters Rubin remarked, "Babel's colourful framework. On the one hand he was a writer who Odessan gangsters loom larger and wilder than contributed to the production of"high culture" life." Commentators use words like "fairyland" who appropriated "low culture" through his and "carnival world" to characterize Babel's representation of Jewish bandits in Moldovanka. depiction of Moldovanka. Soviet dissident writer On the other hand, as a Jew, he was himself and literary critic Andrei Sinyavsky commented marginal at first in Russian cultural circles. His that "Babel's Odessa is a fairyland where local depiction of Jewish criminals in high cultural form images and national traits are surrounded by a halo catapulted him to fame and allowed him to enter of legend" while fialen noted that "his fictional into high literary circles. At the same time he Moldovanka is the direct antithesis of all that is created images of Moldovanka that became central lifeless or gray; its bizarre people live in a carnival in the representation of Odessa. world, in an atmosphere of lurid cooler" (Falen Babel is best-known for his Odessa 1974: 75; Sinyavsky 1987: 92). Critics have Stories and Red Cavalry. The four core works of alternately referred to "Babel's Moldovanka'' and Odessa Stories- The King. How It Was Done In "Babel's Odessa" which along with Babel's title Odessa, The Father, and Liubka Cossack- were Odessa Stories illustrates how Moldovanka comes published between 1921 and 1923 and are to stand for the whole of Odessa. Further, in interrelated through the cast of characters, themes, describing Babel's language Falen has written: milieu and narrative tone (Falen 1974: 62). Other "Through ornamental style he forces his reader to stories set in Odessa featuring the same characters view the commonplace through a topsy-turvy include Justice in Brackets ( 192 1). The End ofthe kaleidoscope, or to use one of his own images, Almshouse, Sunset. and Fraim Grach (1934). The through a pair ofmagic spectacles" (Falen 1974: stories depict the Jewish criminal underworld in 73 ). Finally, Konstantin Paustovsky, Babel's Moldovanka in the period following the 1905 contemporary, described the foreign nature of this Revolution and end in the later stories with the world for the cultural elite reading his stories: "The confrontation between the bandits and the Soviet King dealt with a world completely outside our police. The King introduces Benia Krik (Benia the experience. The characters, their motives, their Yell), the ringleader ofMoldovanka's gangsters, circumstances and their vivid, forceful talk- all depicts his marriage to the rich Eichbaum's were strange to us. The story had the vitality of a daughter, and describes how his men forestalled a grotesque" (Paustovsky 1987: 113). These critics' police raid during the wedding ofBenia's sister by comments illustrate how Babel transformed the setting fire to the police station. How It Was Done "low cultural ways" of Moldovanka into In Odessa recounts how Benia became "The King" something alluring and exotic for the Soviet through his handling of a robbery of the wealthy literary elite.

Vol. 23. No.2 Fall 2005. Page: 75 For all the magic of his prose, Babel did about? About drinking ... and punching someone not invent the world of his stories from scratch but in the face"- a quote from How It Was Done In likely used stories from local newspaper accounts Odessa. These examples illustrate how Babel's and urban folklore (Briker 1994). Newspaper high cultural distillations of quirky characters and articles from the time reveal not only the common customs from the social margins of Moldovanka practice of raids and their increased frequency continue to take on different social meanings in after the revolution, but also how the texts of the everyday life in Odessa where at times the extortionist letters in Babel's stories are identical boundary between fiction and reality appears to to those common at that time. Blatnyie r;esni blur. (underground songs) from the early 20 1' century contain descriptions of milieux, scenarios and More Odessan than Odessa Itself heroes- or "kings" as lead gangsters were In contrast to other tourist guides from the commonly called- similar to those Babel used Soviet and post-Soviet periods, the first volume of (Briker 1994: 124). Benia Krik is modeled on the a new journal for tourists about Odessa devotes a legendary real-life gangster Misha laponchik section to Moldovanka (Gubar et al 2002). The (Misha the Japanese whose real name was Moisee text constructs an atemporal image of Moldovanka Vinnitskii)- also called "The King." Misha partly through folklore, partly through cultural and Iaponchik allied himself with the Bolsheviks commercial institutions once found there. It is -during the Civil War for whom he organized a accompanied by pictures of quaint, run-down regiment of bandits to fight, but in the end the Moldovankan courtyards, and folkloric figures Bolsheviks killed him (Briker 1994: 130). Finally, represented in the courtyard ofthe Odessa in rendering Odessan speech- a mix of Russian, Literature Museum. The text begins with an Ukrainian and Yiddish- Babel made judicious use account of a famous criminal and his wedding of distorted syntax and morphology or other slight banquet in Moldovanka on the corner of deviations from the norms of standard speech Razumovskaia and Kosvenaia Street and describes (Falen 1974). the "kolorit" of neighbours gathered in a If Babel drew inspiration from the courtyard. Although the author refers to peculiarities of urban life in Moldovanka. his own monuments such as the Peter and Paul Orthodox stories, characters and turns of phrase continue to Church, the Ravine Synagogue and St. surface in social life. Katerina Greenberg and her Clementine's Catholic Cathedral, the Institute for husband Igor Kogan, a lecturer at the Noble Maidens, and the Starokonnoi Market, he Polytechnical University nicknamed their cat "Cat­ d~votes more time to describing some of the and-a-half' after the character Tartakovskii whose famous brothels on Zaporozhskaia Street and a nickname was "Jew-and-a-half' when she gave story about a certain madam. birth to a single kitten. Igor also described how a After detailing the specialized food items group of students at his school in central Odessa produced in the district as well as various factories would meet after class to read Babel's stories in and workshops, Gubar lists famous people the early 1960s. At my friend Natalia's weekly connected with the district: Isaak Babel, beer night at her home, her guest, Roman, once Aleksander Pushkin (who arrived to the city played a series of songs about Babel's through the area and described it briefly in Evgenii Moldovankan characters on the guitar. While Onegin), Eduard Bagritskii (who passed through visiting Katerina and Igor's dacha, their guest, the district when he left the city and described it in Grisha, an engineer who works for a small firm, one of his poems), and Emil Gilels (the world­ referred offhandedly to how he had brought his famous pianist who was born and lived there). The book of Babel's stories to work that day to settle a text describes the communal life of courtyards, friendly dispute with his boss about whether in a their multi-ethnic composition, the ethnic tolerance certain story Babel had written "eat and drink" or of their inhabitants and the Odessan language that "drink and eat." Finally, on two occasions, Viktor emerged from there. After listing various Feldman (b. 1915), an archivist who grew up in a professions at the bottom of the social hierarchy, Moldovankan courtyard (see below), repeated the author dwells on bindiuzhniki (the Ukrainian lines from Babel's stories without citing him. On word for draymen which Babel popularized)- a one occasion, to illustrate his grandmother's now vanished profession vividly described in misfortune in being married off to a man that Babel's stories- and their worldview, customs and owned an inn where bindiuzhniki (draymen) laws. Finally, after describing various wine cellars, stayed, he said: "What does a drayman think musicians and songs in conclusion we read:

Vol. 23, No.2 Fall 2005. Page: 76 Today you hear different music in of Moldovanka as uncultured and uninteresting Moldovanka. There are new supermarkets, situates it at the symbolic margins of Odessa. It firms, Internet providers, garages, ad can be read as the persistence of a discourse agencies ... But Moldovanka remains in these Sylvester (200 I) describes as having emerged in decorations, in your ears, in life because it is pre-revolutionary times in which a peripheral a unique phenomenon of morals, norms, criminal Moldovanka is seen to represent lifestyle, melancholic memories- in short it everything the bourgeois centre is not. is more Odessan than Odessa itself. (ibid: 44) "Cultured" Moldovanka The folkloric figures and marginal types like criminals and madams presented in this text In her book Moldovanka (200 I), mirror Babel's stories and underscore and Dontsova aimed to expand Odessans' perpetuate a particular view of Moldovanka in understanding of the district through a presentation which its exotic marginality becomes symbolically of its pre-revolutionary history. After a period of central. archival research she found that much to her surprise that Moldovanka was a "genuine terra Dangerous and Down and Out incognita on what would seem to be the well studied map ofthe history of Odessa" (Dontsova Although some residents enthusiastically 200 I: 4). She explains why: romanticized Moldovanka, others looked down on the place, never went there, and noted the I think that there are two reasons for this uncomfortable living conditions, the "uncultured" apparent paradox: the repression of local people, and the fact that all institutions of cultural history as a science ... and the works of Isaak import were in the centre. Elena Malakhovskaia, Babel .... In reading Odessa Stories the public an artist born in 1937, remarked: "I don't like began to perceive Moldovanka as a kind of going there because it is depressing and culturally outdoor theatre ... which continued to play backward." Leah, a psychology student at the the tragicomedies from the life of its exalted Odessa National University, grew up in the centre inhabitants.... Understandably Soviet but lived in Moldovanka for a few years with her propaganda, which presented this district­ husband who was from the district. She noted: "It called Iliachevsk - as reborn from the poor of is really closely-knit and I was always an outsider. this working class area, would pale beside the I don't find anything enlightened in the communal magic of Babel's prose. The many years of courtyard life." Igor Kogan, a lecturer at the the coexistence of official and mythical Polytechnical University said: "I grew up in the Moldovankas can be felt to this day. More centre of Odessa and all my friends were there. I than one generation of Odessans, not to had no reason and no interest in going to mention readers of"Moldovankan exotica" Moldovanka." Further, when I expressed my from other cities has grown up with the deep interest in renting a flat in the district, several conviction that "it was, is, and will be like people (who lived in the centre) cautioned against that forever."(ibid: 4) it, saying that the district was full of alcoholics and Dontsova does not aim to negate the drug addicts and that I might be robbed there. mythology but rather to present previously In contrast, it was not uncommon for unknown facets of the district's history. She people who grew up in Moldovanka to consider pointed out that although many poor people lived the centre of the city more interesting and in Moldovanka, the district also had schools, prestigious. Galina Maksimenko was born in cultural institutions and charities. In focusing on Moldovanka (I 937) but left in the 1950s. A cultural institutions and the intelligentsia her masseuse by training, she worked on a Soviet account contrasts with the criminal, down-and-out cruise liner for twenty years. As a university types that figure in Babel's stories, other legends, student, her boyfriend lived in a central district and and the popular imagination. Through her choice when they married, she moved to his flat in a of topics, Dontsova's book is an argument for "more prestigious district near French Boulevard considering Moldovanka part of the historical and forgot about my Moldovanka." Tatiana "centre" on the terms of the "centre" itself- that Dontsova, author of the book about Moldovanka, is, by underscoring the contribution of its residents studied at an institute located in the centre which and institutions to the social. cultural and she found architecturally more interesting. Only in economic development of the city. the early 1990s did she become interested in her own district ofMoldovanka. The characterization Vol. 23, No.2 Fall 2005, Page: 77 Shifting Place, Ambivalent Attitudes Where do you get the name Moldovanka? At the edge of Odessa there were settlements of In the fall of2002, the architect-planners Moldovans, Bulgarians, and Gypsies. responsible for Moldovanka stressed that although Gradually factories were built there. It was a the district was once geographically marginal and workers' district. There was little in the way low-prestige, its current relatively central location of intelligentsia there. After the Soviet is beginning to make it more prestigious. When authorities came, then people there began to apartment blocks have been constructed or get an education - and went out into the buildings renovated "they do not remain empty for world. Gradually others moved there and long." Indeed, a local real estate agency has there was a mix with the intelligentsia. Some highlighted the spatial centrality and the fame of lived well, others- badly. Nowadays, some the district.6 wealthy people live in Moldovanka -large Moldovanka is in some respects the buildings are being constructed. But the typical district to undergo gentrification. Indeed. centre of Moldovanka has remained local historians and enthusiasts are appalled that Moldovanka. I lived there in the summer on more buildings are not being restored and would Prokhorovskaia Street - the centre of welcome such processes. Yet planners frequently Moldovanka, near Miasoiedovskaia Street. .. point out that many of the buildings have major There's a song Pro Miasoiedovskuiu, Ulitsia structural damage because they have not moia. Akh Odessa ... (Miasoiedovskaia, My undergone any m;:Uor renovations since they were Street ... 0 Odessa). You can hear through built- often in the mid 19111 century. Further, they the window what kinds of thugs walk around explain, since Moldovanka is now part of the city there. They drink, fight, shriek ... Centro, building new apartment blocks could Gal ina succinctly sketches the large-scale accommodate more people than reconstructing transformations that have occurred over decades. existing low-rise structures. Restoration would Yet she also evokes the unchanging character of cost the same or more than constructing new ones Moldovanka which she sees as connected to while most of the buildings in Moldovanka, Babelesque images of criminals and their though charming, "are not of architectural boisterous lifestyle. significance." Moldovanka enthusiasts on the other hand, do not command the resources to buy up and Defining Places restore the buildings. In the fall of2002 plans existed to make a museum of Moldovanka and Marketplaces and communal courtyards reconstruct a typical courtyard since, as one in the historic part of the city are cited by residents planner put it, "there are few such courtyards any as places that have produced and represent the more." However, in July 2005, this plan had fallen distinctiveness of Moldovanka and Odessa. by the wayside, whereas projects to tear down and Courtyards and markets are places of an intense reconstruct residential apartments had accelerated. sociality- one a place of dwelling, domesticity and familiar faces, the other a public place of Curiously, some local historians fluctuating relationships and commerce. At the expressed ambivalence about the district. Albert same time, the courtyards and the Starokonnoi Malinovskii (see below) attends the Starokonnoi Market in Moldovanka are increasingly being Market regularly to meet people and "feel the codified locally as places that have constituted aura" but when I asked about preserving the Odessans as special kinds of people and where the district, he said the buildings should be tom down. "real Odessa" can still be felt. In contrast, in areas Valerii Netrebskii, a guide and local historian also outside Moldovanka, many of my interlocutors advocated tearing down much of Moldovanka and felt, the character of the city has been muted due to building "civilized" housing with proper emigration, privatization of flats, and plumbing, roofing, etc., even though he is commercialization of the central areas of the city. generally in favor of preserving buildings. His Below I illuminate the practices of courtyards and views horrified his interlocutor, a young the Starokonnoi Market and their objectification in photographer who insisted that the way of life in a local ideology in order to reflect on the broader Moldovankan courtyards had produced the social processes ofwhich this "objectification" Odessan character and must be preserved. may be part. Gal ina Maximenko captured the complexity of the shifting, contradictory images of Moldovanka during a walk through this district:

Vol. 23, No.2 Fall 2005, Page: 78 Courtyards in disciplining their members. The notion of bolshaia semia (large family) is often invoked by More than a hundred years ago it was current and former residents to describe ideals of remarked that Odess~ had the charms of both courtyard life~ the sense of moral obligation, the capital and the province. Her streets are solidarity and cooperation (see also Boldetskaia like the capital and her courtyards like the and Leonhardt 1995). Confiicts and tensions have province. arisen among neighbours over appropriate moral ~Elena Karakina. Or Sameakh, 27.12.2000 behaviour and more recently, differences in socio­ economic status (ibid). Individuals who grew up in Architecturally, courtyards in Moldovankan courtyards repeated common Moldovanka vary considerably in size and type of themes: features of communal life; residents' building. The "typical" Moldovankan courtyard is multi-cultural backgrounds; humorous stories compri;ed of two-story buildings with a mix of about neighbours: and the emigration of communal and single family apartments arranged neiahbours and in-migration of strangers. 7 around a small square with galleries on the upper b ~ fioor. This southern-European style residential Elena Nezdoiminoga, the architect architecture~ suitable for Odessa because of its responsible for the Iliachevsk district,8 provided a mild climate~ was widespread throughout the city description of the communal nature of courtyard during the first half of the 191h century (Topchiev life: 1994: 214 ). Most courtyards are closed spaces In Moldovanka, the smaller the courtyard, the entered through a central passageway with gates of more exotic and koloritni. You also have iron or wood, although some have passageways to your Aunt Sonya and Aunt Dusia who are adjacent streets. In the centre of the courtyard there keeping an eye on everyone. I grew up whe~ is often a large tree (presumably to provide shade you could feel it really strongly. I was born m and for aesthetic purposes) while benches can be 1955. You could feel this I 00% until 1960.9 found under the tree or around the edges of the On holidays we celebrated in the courtyards. square. "Conveniences" such as a water source and We set up a table there and had a huge meal toilet were often located in the courtyard itself together. If someone got married or ifthere although many buildings now have indoor was a birthday we had a meal together and plumbing. Depending on the courtyard, garages celebrated in tbe courtyard. In the evenings it and storage sheds may be found at the back. was one big courtyard where adults played Laundry is often hung in the courtyard and while it dominoes or chess and children played is rare to find domestic animals and gardens as around. If my mum went to work, someone was common in the past, moc>t courtyards have a would make sure that I got to school. The brood of cats. Some Moldovankan courtyards have whole courtyard was keeping a look out ... a haphazard appearance because of the there were people who on their own initiative construction of makeshift, semi-official housing on organized activities for children and looked the sites of bombed or collapsed buildings after after them. It was one big family. There was World War II. Although each Moldovankan a lane with twelve courtyards. Children from courtyard is undoubtedly a unique place, these those twelve courtyards played together. If common features make the courtyard a specific someone lost their child, they usually found kind of place and a key feature in the imagination him with a grandmother from the of Odessa as a locality and Moldovanka itself as a neighbouring courtyard. The kolorit that place within it. existed then is disappearing. But times Courtyards are complex social spaces. In change. the late Soviet period (and now) courtyard Anna Kerpel, a correspondent for the residents were initially strangers from a variety of news agency Ukrinform in her late thirties, also backorounds who ended up living in the courtyard grew up in Moldovanka. She elaborated further on for different reasons, under circumstances similar some of the "traditions" that made Moldovankan to those characterizing a communal fiat courtyards distinct from the centre, some of which (Boldetskaia and Leonhardt 1995: 9). In the Soviet she became aware of from friends who visited period, the courtyards were effectively from the centre or other cities: incorporated into the state through courtyard committees which had a predsedatel (head) and Courtyard residents always considered the several commissioners, structures which still exist courtyard part of their home. That's why it in some courtyards but do not have the same clout was acceptable for women to go around in a

Vol. 23, No.2 Fall 2005. Page: 79 housecoat and men in pyjamas. They would indifference and lack of empathy for other city often stand around talking on the street in dwellers (Simmel 1969) which Gerasimova also front of the building with friends from describes for many communal flat residents (2002: neighbouring courtyards after garbage 224). or the impersonal, superficial, transitory and collection ... Because everyone knew each segmental quality of relationships (Wirth 1969). other, the residents of old courtyards hardly The understandings of space generated in and ever had curtains in their windows. between courtyards through the interplay of built Everything would become known anyway ... form, social relationships and styles of communication seem more intimately connected to It was usual to speak to people from "personal" spaces of the home than the corridors wherever you were standing- from a and kitchens of communal flats. Courtyard life in distance - sometimes from a window when Moldovanka of the late Soviet period, as recalled you had to call kids, or speak to someone in by contemporary Odessans, appears to have been a the courtyard. A woman might bargain with a distinct form of communalism generated in part by seller in the courtyard from her window. Or if pre-revolutionary architectural forms and a kid went to a part of the courtyard where traditions in contact with evolving Soviet his mum couldn't see she would stick her ideologies and practices. head out her window and yell: "Where's Alesha?!" Viktor Feldman, an archivist, lived in Moldovanka from the time he was born in 1915 One other difference between Moldovanka until Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Viktor's and the centre, was the ease with which you description of a pre-World War II courtyard life could communicate and make contact with vividly portrays the multi-ethnic composition of people. The flat where we lived had a families and professions that no longer exist: window that opened onto the street. We would often play our music in that room. We I lived on the corner of Bazarnaia Street and noticed that outside the window there some Troikhugolnaia Street- the boundary men were standing around who lived nearby. between Moldovanka and the city ... The I thought that maybe it was their gathering courtyard was very unique. There were two place. But one day I had the window open main categories of people. First there were and one asked me to turn up the music. So it those who worked for the Jewish Funeral was clear that this group formed thanks to us. Brotherhood which was located in our They began to gather outside our window to building, 'One of the first civic organizations listen to music and discuss their affairs. of the Jewish community in Odessa. This Brotherhood collected money and buried the Whereas Elena's temporal reference point poor- of which there were many- free or is the 1950s and 60s, ten to fifteen years after nearly free of charge. They collected money World War II had ended, after Stalin's death, and a from the rich for funerals. The organization time when the hardships of the immediate post­ was quite harsh. If they considered that a war period were beginning to recede, Anna family had not given them enough money, describes experiences in the 1980s and early they might not let them enter the cemetery .... 1990s. Elena and Anna's description of the The second category was workers. Many kinship-like relationships among neighbours and worked in the port as stevedores . . . . A the communal use of courtyard for leisure and stevedore never drank vodka with anyone festivities captures the "provincial" quality from the Funeral Brotherhood. They said: Karakina evokes. Although Utekhin's definition of ''they eat their bread from others' grief." courtyards in Petersburg underscores their role in the formation of child, youth or criminal .... The composition of the courtyard was subcultures, Elena and Anna's accounts suggest very international. Among my friends there social relationships among and across generations were Greeks, Germans- Pavel Gauk- his (200 I: 186). In contrast to Gerasimova' s analysis family were colonists, and Bulgarians. I think of communal apartments, in courtyards. it seems there were about 50-70 families in the there was "purposeful common activity" on the courtyard. And at least five different part of residents (2002: 215). The picture these nationalities ... In courtyards, people for the two women paint appears to have more in common most part lived on friendly terms. I don't with village life than qualities classical urban remember serious scandals with the theorists have attributed to cities, such as

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- ______,..... exception of those times when one of the Imagine, a shared kitchen and toilet, different stevedores came home very drunk. standards of cleanliness, families living together in close proximity. You are forced to Whereas Anna and Elena's courtyard live together in a small space. There is descriptions evoke a village-like atmosphere, nowhere to hide. There were often scandals Viktor's suggests that courtyard life may be a but very rarely did they take an ethnic blend of qualities attributed to rural and urban character- only at critical moments, like milieux. In particular. the manner in which when it came time to sharing the electricity different nationalities and professions lived as bill or something, someone would one accuse neighbours in close quarters suggests the qualities another of having served the Romanians, or of density and heterogeneity associated more with accuse a Jew of not wanting to fight [in the cities (Wirth 1969). war] and being a coward ... Cooperation. kinship-type relations and The discomforts Maria and Ilia describe ethnic tolerance are the positive features such as having "nowhere to hide" resonate highlighted about courtyard life, the features that strongly with anxieties about demarcating are part of the local ideology of Odessa itself as "private" space in communal flats (Gerasimova bolshaia semia. In contrast to this rosy picture, 2002). These concerns about ''private space" other people noted negative features of communal contradict the depictions of communalism life and inter-ethnic relations. Maria Maslak presented earlier. Various scholars of Soviet (Galina Maksimenko's mother) was born in history have remarked on privatization of Soviet Moldovanka in 1911. Her Ukrainian parents had life in the beginning in the late thirties and moved to Odessa from Chernihiv. With the continuing in the post-war period- and thus the exception of the years between 1939-42 when she creation of a subject for whom "privacy" is an lived with her second husband's family in the issue. However, it is possible that this process central part of the city, she lived in Moldovanka evolved unevenly and that there was a mix of until 1983. subjects for whom these issues were more or less Moldovanka. What? What kind of life? salient. The courtyards of Moldovanka may have Awful conditions! A toilet in the courtyard. supported a more communal-oriented subject. Water in the courtyard .... I did my laundry World War II and the Romanian there- but you had to watch what you hung Occupation had traumatic effects on this district out there because there was so much and changed the composition of the courtyards and stealing ... Later the flat began to fall apart. relations within them. Jews who remained in the The courtyard ... the walls were falling district became the victims of the Nazi down ... extermination policy. Suddenly ethnicity mattered, I finished only four classes at school. But my identities were reified, and Odessans' ethnic children studied- my daughter was the best tolerance evaporated. Although Vladimir Rechister student in her class. The teacher asked her to (b. 1923) described his courtyard as a "big family" help other students ... I remember one with members of different nationalities, his stories neighbour, Natasha. Her grandmother came provided a chilling account of the brutal ways the over once to make a scandal. She was angry war transformed the social fabric of the district. that I threw her kids out and didn't let my His family and one other Jewish family were daughter help them. I said why should they evacuated and learned what happened when they bother her, she has to study too. She'd be returned after the war. Some Jewish neighbours studying and they'd come round and distract who remained behind were shot, while others her by asking for help. perished in the Slobodka ghetto. His Bulgarian childhood friend turned in Jewish residents across Maria's account stresses the conflicts the street who were subsequently shot. with neighbours over attempts to enforce a space for the family and the violation of the obligations Transformation is a theme in nearly every implied by the notion of"big family" such as contemporary account of courtyard life. Nearly all stealing. Ilia Rotenburg, who is Jewish, was born the residents ofllia's courtyard have moved away in 1945 and also grew up in Moldovanka. An or emigrated. Mikhail Poisner, lecturer, collector engineer and photographer, Ilia also underscored and writer who still lives in the courtyard where he the difficulties of communal living: grew up, noted that virtually all of his immediate neighbours had moved there from villages in the

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past decade. Vladimir Rechister lamented that The Starokonnoi Market there were hardly any "real" Odessans left in The liveliest theatre can be found at the Moldovanka and that villagers had taken their market. place. Ilia was concerned that Moldovanka was -Leonid Utesov becoming like certain districts in European cities populated by large numbers of"foreigners"­ Starokonnoi is more than a market- it's a people from the Caucasus, China and Vietnam. condition ofthe soul. Individuals whose parents may have moved to - Vadim Evodnkimov, Slovo, 23JJ3.2001 Odessa from the village prior to, during, or after the war are now highly critical of newcomers. The Like courtyards, the Starokonnoi (Old "tolerance" that Odessans constantly attribute to Horse) Market has become a defining place of themselves is not a mythical, enduring quality, but Moldovanka and Odessa as a whole. It is located subject to wider social and political processes that in a very old part of the district between construct certain categories of peoples as insiders Petropavlovskaia, Raskidailovskaia, Kosvennaia and others as outsiders. There are new albeit more and Konnaia Streets. The market is particularly subtle processes of exclusion occurring at an striking on weekends when flea market vendors ideological level in response to social lay out their goods on the sidewalks around the transformation and its perceived effects on the small market square. Locally, it is being reified as erosion of Odessa's special qualities. one of the few "authentic" Odessan places that remain. Moldovankan courtyards are constituted as places through specific practices and local A market has operated at the Starokonnoi ideology. Like houses they seem to embody and Marketplace since the 1830s although it has generate sociality (Carsten and Hugh-Jones 1995). undergone many transformations both in size and 10 Given that "dwelling" is a key aspect ofthe the nature of goods sold. In its current phenomenological experience of place, it is manifestation, the Starokonnoi Market has two perhaps not surprising that the courtyard has taken parts. The first consists of the market square where on such a significant role in Odessans' self image, small warehouses, stalls and kiosks are located and given the ubiquitous experiences of dwelling in where vendors sell pets and goods found in other such quarters until the 1960s. Many Odessans markets in the city- food items, clothing, consider the Soviet districts built in the post war toiletries, and small gadgets. The second part period to be "not Odessan" and incapable of resembles a flea market, a makeshift market along generating an Odessan person. Curiously the the streets outside the marketplace where people communal life of the courtyard reflects the benign display items on sidewalks for several blocks. It is sociality of the courtyards of the middle period of the flea market with its eclectic range of goods that Soviet architecture Caroline Humphrey analyses in people have in mind when they refer to the Makine's imaginative accounts (2005: 53). Yet as uniqueness of Starokonnoi. Selling on the architectural structures, Moldovankan courtyards sidewalks is technically illegal, although 11 pre-dated Soviet ideologies and architectural tolerated. Prior to 1991 when the market was practices yet are a form that fit well with and then sold to a private owner, many vendors who now outlived them. Although the uniqueness of stand on the street traded in the marketplace itself. courtyard life is viewed as Odessan (as distinct Some moved out of the marketplace because space from Soviet) it is nevertheless inflected with the was taken up by new vendors while others did not meanings of Soviet communalism. Finally, the want to pay the higher fee. The marketplace has idealized image of the courtyard life in the past been expanded at the expense of a block of old may serve as a means of imagining, if not realizing residential buildings. According to the district the possibility of transcending new and old architects' office, street vendors were to be divisions, similar to the way nostalgia for past relocated to the new marketplace but as of the July forms of hospitality, mutual dependence and 2005 they continue to sell on the streets. reciprocity in Rethemnos, Crete express a longing An eclectic assortment of goods were to overcome present-day class, educational, and available on the streets around the Starokonnoi cultural differences (Herzfeld 1991: 66-67). Market. Many people sold second-hand clothing. Others sold used books- mainly Soviet publications and textbooks although occasionally a collector's item. Some vendors sold antiques, but these items were not considered to be as high

Vol. 23, No.2 Fall 2005, Page: 82 (1). quality as goods found there in the late Soviet Some goods were his own possessions while other period. All types of old Soviet goods- lamps, items were acquired through exchanging items busts of Lenin and Stalin, dishes, pots, radios, with friends. The collectors' items he sold had pins, and LPs- were sold. Sections of the street sometimes been purchased while occasionally he market specialized in Soviet-made car and sold items on friends' behalf. appliance parts. Other individuals served the Albert stressed that he did not attend the vendors by selling coffee, tea and stuffed buns out market to sell goods because he needed the money. of stationary or mobile counters. Rather, attending the market was a way to see In a newspaper article about the friends regularly, meet new people, and arrange Starokonnoi Market, a local journalist Vadim deals. In other words he sought ohshchenie and Evdokimov commented on what made the place trade in other intangibles- relationships, stories. special: ideas- in the way Evdokimov suggests. He took time to walk around the market to visit fellow There are few places left in our city about vendors and purchase goods. Often these people which you can say: "here you can feel the could help in resolving a problem he faced spirit of Odessa, this place smells of Odessa." unconnected to the market. Albert also had regular This Odessan kolorit is given not so much by clients who would stop and chat, some of whom the external appearance as much as by the were interested in the collectors' items and others atmosphere of conversation (ohshchenie), or in his ever-changing selection of COs and videos. the aura. that predominates. These are the feelings aroused in us by the intoxicating air Scenes observed or conversations ofthe Starokonnoi Market, which for overheard become material for Albert's stories Odessans is simultaneously a zoo, a while relationships formed with vendors and workshop, an interest club and an open air clients yielded information for his own historical museum. (Evdokimov 200 I) work or story-writing. For example, Ivan Zherebkin, born in 1920, lived on Evdokimov refers to the "spirit" and Petropavlovskaia Street where he sold used radios "smell" of Odessa and indicates that the and cassette players. He had worked in the Odessa uniqueness of the place- and Odessa as a whole­ film studio and had provided Albert with is something that one does not necessarily see. information about certain directors and old movie Rather one feels- or becomes intoxicated by- the theatres in Odessa. Aleksander, another elderly atmosphere. Although the exchange of an eclectic Moldovanka resident, whose family had been in range of commodities plays a role in giving Odessa for generations, had told Albert stories Moldovanka its special qualities, a much more from his own life and what he had learned about important facet of place is the exchange of stories, the history of the city from elderly relatives. ideas, jokes, and performances either independent Albert's relationship with Ivan and Aleksander from or alongside the transaction of commodities. illustrates the non-commercial kinds of exchanges This account- one of several I encountered during that occur at the market. In other words, Ivan and my stay- reveals the increasing objectification of Aleksander relayed memories and historical the market as a place to find the "real" Odessa. knowledge that became part of Albert's local I experienced "my'' Starokonnoi when I history and fictional accounts of the city. joined Albert Malinovskii in selling his goods on Not all vendors attended the market for Saturdays during the fall of 2002. Albert is a conversation. For many, the sale of goods retired engineer born and raised in Odessa whose provided a source of income, however minuscule. vocation is writing short stories and local history. Albert's friend Sergei, an engineer, sold goods at He recently published a book about film in Odessa the market for four years when he could not find and was writing a book of short stories set in other work even though he found it degrading. He Odessa. He had been attending the market for had stopped selling at the market after working for several years. During the fall of2002 he stood in a deputy during the parliamentary elections in the front of a building on Serovaia Street. 12 The items spring of 2002 after which he was offered work he sold differed from week to week. Compact promoting films for the Odessa Film Club. Daria, discs, videos, and his own book were the mainstay one of Albert's neighbours at the market and a of his goods for sale. Sometimes he sold old teacher by training, insisted the majority of postcards, journals, books or other pictures of vendors had a higher education but simply could interest to collectors. Other times he sold clothes, not afford to continue working in their profession barrettes, hairpins, and Soviet-made perfume.

Vol. 23, No.2 Fall 2005. Page: 83 because of low salaries. Daria was from Mykolaiv commonly held idea that Moldovanka is an "open­ where she worked in an antique shop. She came air theatre." Their comments also resonate with regularly to the Starokonnoi Market to sell Agnew's ( 1988) analysis of the inter-relations of antiques on the weekend. Svetlana, the resident of the ideas of theatre and market in Anglo-American the house in front of which these vendors stood, thought. However, in contrast to Agnew's was from Samara but moved to Odessa thirty years description of the interconnections between the earlier. In Odessa she had worked in the Musical institutions oftheatre and market in Medieval Comedy Theatre for some time but from 1986 England, in the Starokonnoi Market relations seem onwards she had gone on tours to eastern founded on the idea that both vendors and buyers European countries as well as Italy, Spain and perform the Odessan character in everyday Turkey to purchase goods which she sold on her exchanges of stories and commodities for the return. Her husband was a poacher involved in the enjoyment of other Odessans and non-Odessans caviar trade who had lived in Uzbekistan for the alike. As place the Starokonnoi Market differs previous eight years to work off a debt he incurred from courtyards. Its fluctuating, fleeting to pay for a shipment that did not arrive in Odessa. relationships contrast to the kin-like relationships She sold goods such as clothes, Lenin portraits, of courtyards. Yet the idealized images of books and appliances but still had difficulty courtyards and the Starokonnoi Market share an making ends meet as she was supporting her sister emphasis on connection, communication, and who was mentally ill and unable to work. community and perhaps as a means to imagine transcending newly-created social, economic and One Saturday, one of Albert's more ethnic differences. distant acquaintances- a "typical" flamboyant Odessan -stopped for a chat. He showed Albert a Touring Moldovanka and the Performativity of black mug with his zodiac sign which he Place purchased together with a coin, allegedly from I ih century Russia. Then he asked who I was and said: Portraits of courtyard life and encounters "I can tell she's not an Odessan." He began at the Starokonnoi Market convey a sense of two flattering me. Pulling out a picture of his son, he kinds of place in Moldovanka whose salience replied, "I'd introduce you to my son, but he's resonates widely and identifies the district as one married already, he's attractive, tall, and smart locus of the "real Odessa." Yet a sense of place is too ... "Then he reeled out a series of stories from also generated through the interaction of body, his own life. He began with the fact that he was a place and IT!otion (Casey 1996) in spatial practices pilot and then jumped to a story about his high such as touring. Anna Misiuk offers walking tours school graduation night: "I didn't know how to about "Jewish Odessa" to groups of German dance well, but I tried to practice a little. At the tourists who travel to Ukraine on "intellectual" dance I met this girl Olga who was very small. I tours organized by the Berlin Tourist Bureau as danced with her all night and never noticed that I well as groups from Israel and North America. was carrying her and that her feet were not One part of the tour focuses on the centre of the touching the ground! I wanted to marry her but my city and another on Moldovanka. I joined an mother was against it." Then he told a story about informal tour she offered two German tourists and how he tried to learn to kiss properly: "I used to some of her course participants from the Jewish sell cups of water at the Pryvoz Market for five Self-Education Centre. We began at the Old Free kopecks. With the money I bought a tomato ... I bit Port boundary where she provided an overview of it and sucked till there was nothing left. Then once the district. She highlighted the large numbers of at a movie, I was so anxious to try it out that I Jews who moved to the area because of the lax grabbed the woman next to me kissed her, felt her practice of registration and the lucrative trade in up, and then she passed out from shock ... " After contraband goods. She stressed the fact that the telling these exuberant stories, he made a move to district was half-urban and half-rural and at one go ~ kissed my hand and wished me health and point had played a significant role in providing the happiness and then was off. After this Albert said: city with food. "You see, typical Odessan. You'd never We walked to Prokhorovskaia Square and experience something like that in Canada would stopped at the Holocaust Memorial you?" commemorating the Road to Death 13 and Odessans This vignette evokes Utesov's comment who hid and helped Jews. Turning onto that the "liveliest theatre can be found at the Miasoiedovskaia Street, Anna pointed out an bazaar" and Dontsova's reference to the administrative building that had once been a

Vol. 23. No.2 Fall 2005, Page: 84 prayer house. We also entered a small "typical" details Babel had missed. According to Anna, the courtyard where Anna described the relationships Germans were wide-eyed with wonder. among neighbours and the convoluted interiors of Anna's story about the unplanned the buildings. At the corner ofMiasoiedovskaia encounter between tourists and residents in the Street and Khmelnitskaia Street she pointed out courtyard captures issues concerning the complex the Jewish Hospital (now called the "First City inter-relations of locals, guides, texts, Hospital"). When we turned onto Bulgarskaia performances and tourists in the production of Street, with Dontsova' s book in hand Anna located place (Coleman and Crang 2002). The place seems an old courtyard where a veterinarian operated. to perforn1 through its exuberant and eccentric She noted the stalls for animals now transformed residents. Yet as these "performances" are into storage areas. On the other side of the street, spontaneous and unplanned, the line between she pointed out a building where one of the drama and life is blurred. Both the guide, a local wedding banquets in Babel's stories had taken non-resident of the district, and the tourists from place, and shops that sold water and ''eastern abroad experience the courtyard event as blurring sweets.'· We walked back to the centre through the boundary of fact and fiction and reproducing Ilich Park where the first major cemetery in Babel's mythical image of the district. Coleman Odessa had been located. It had Christian, Jewish and Crang propose an approach to tourism that and Muslim sections but was leveled by the Soviet fixes neither authenticity. performance nor place authorities in the 1930s. Anna· s tour connected but rather sees it as an ''event that is about visible monuments such as the Holocaust mobilizing and reconfiguring spaces and places. memorial with newly re-discovered but as yet brinaing them into new constellations and unmarked places such as the prayer house. 0 . therefore transforming them'" and advocate paymg Although she highlighted ordinary places such as attention to the performativity of place rather than the courtyard, the places that guided her narrative performance in place (2002: I 0). As we saw in the were "significant" because of their connection to section on the Starokonnoi Market, Moldovanka is Babel's stories or Jewish history and culture in the a place Odessans themselves consider city. This is much like Rojek's concept of "performative"- '·an open air theatre." The places indexing, the use of fiction and fact to imbue where these performances are witnessed are physical space with meaning ( 1997: 53). Places increasingly being objectified as "authentic" even that have disparate temporal, social or spatial locally. As global tourism develops, the relationships are linked together in traversing performativity of place willlik.ely transform. It Moldovanka to create a very different sense of a would not be surprising to see the emergence of place. performative engagements with place similar to In 2002 Anna was training a group of Filippucci's (2002) descriptions of carnival and a university students to give guided tours of Jewish folklore group's performance of traditional street Odessa. During one meeting she narrated an trades in Sassano, Italy. incident that had occurred during one tour with a German group through Moldovanka to illustrate Conclusion that the theatricality and exuberance of the district This article has traced processes through residents remained. On this occasion Anna's group which Moldovanka comes to stand for all Odessa of German tourists entered a small courtyard on in order to illuminate how the city is culturally Kosvenaia Street near the Starokonnoi Market to produced as a locality "separate'' from Ukraine. see the courtyard where the wedding banquet Moldovanka·s place in Odessa has shifted from described in Babel's story The King took place. As marginal to central along three axes- geographic, the German guide read the story out loud, some soci~-economic and symbolic- and in relation to residents emerged from their flats onto the gallery its manifestation as high or low culture. in housecoats and slippers and looked down at the Moldovanka's symbolically central position is group. One woman said about Anna: "I've seen connected with Babel's high literary representation her here before, I've wondered what she's been up of the district in his Odessa Stories. These to." The residents figured out what the guide was portrayals of colorful and exotic characters reading and began talking among themselves. The continue to transmit a sense of Odessa as Jewish German asked Anna to translate. One woman and part of a Russian cultural space. Certain kinds continued, "Yes, I remember my great-aunt talking of places within the district- courtyards and a about that banquet" and proceeded to add a few marketplace- are viewed as embodying kolorit and forms of sociality considered authentically

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11!//'dl Odessan. Spatial practices such as touring also embodying these qualities is occurring as the play a role in regenerating a sense of the district as practices and forms of sociality they embody are a spatially and socially distinct place. Tours displaced. reproduce a more objectified, mythologized Moldovanka- mainly for outsiders- and generate a sense of the place as "performative" ofOdessan Notes kolorit. 1 Odessa's historical centre has remained largely Although on the one hand, this article has intact from the prerevolutionary era. Although traced the production of images that fix the some construction took place in the interwar '"essence" of Moldovanka, on the other it situated period, it was primarily after World War II that the the often contradictory understandings of place city significantly expanded when large residential against the backdrop of larger-scale economic, districts were built where about 70 per cent of the political and cultural processes. Although population live (Topchiev 1994). Moldovanka at times stands for all Odessa, it has nevertheless been produced as a place in 2 Odessa was founded in 1794 by Catherine II to opposition to other parts of the city- particularly stabilize, settle, and develop trade in the lands the centre- through economic processes that left it north of the Black Sea that the Russian Empire had on the margins in prerevolutionary times and to acquired from the Ottoman Empire (Herlihy different degrees in subsequent periods. In a 1986). The city was established a few decades different vein, Babel's images of Moldovanka and after the remaining vestiges of autonomous Odessa have acquired their salience through Ukrainian political formations east of the Dnipro literary processes and reading practices that are River had been dismantled; indeed, Ukraine did simultaneously translocal- created through the not attain full political sovereignty until 1991, with Soviet literary establishment, Russian speaking the exception of brief periods in 1918-1919. audiences, and now western tourists- and local. Throughout the nineteenth century, Odessa was one of the most rapidly developing cities in The qualities highlighted about Europe, and by the mid-1800s was the third-most Moldovanka comprise a combination of features prominent city in the Russian Empire in size, associated with villages (kinship. solidarity) and economy, and cultural importance. Inhabited by the city (ethnic tolerance and social diversity). The Greeks, Italians, French, Poles, Jews, Bulgarians, positive valuation of''provincial" ways of Germans, Moldovans, Russians, and Ukrainians. communal courtyard life may be a response to a among others: the city was cosmopolitan from the sense of dislocation and destabilized social outset. It emerged from Catherine's policy of networks caused by emigration, economic and attracting foreign merchants, administrators, and social change. These images contrast with another colonists from western Europe and the Ottoman set of images about the city as a bastion of culture Empire to develop Novorossia (New Russia). By and cosmopolitanism in contrast to the backward the early twentieth century the city was countryside. The mix of rural and urban qualities linguistically and culturally more Russian than a works to underscore Odessa's distinctiveness and century previously. A large Jewish community the differences between Odessans and residents of made up at least a third of its population. With the other Ukrainian cities who are considered cold and outbreak of World War I, the city was hard hit by distant (Kyiv as capital city) or intolerant (Lviv, the dislocation of industry and the decline of the western Ukrainian "nationalist" city). Black Sea trade. By 1923, it had lost nearly half its The coexistence of the vivid image of population due to external and internal migration Moldovanka as the location ofkolorit and images (Guthier 1981: 175). of the darker, more dreary side of life in the After its incorporation into Soviet Ukraine, district is suggestive of broader socio-economic Odessa was eclipsed economically, politically, and and discursive instabilities in the post-Soviet culturally by other cities, even though it remained period. The images of Moldovanka codified as an important port in the Soviet Union and home to "authentically Odessan" in tourist guides, a shipping fleet. During the Second World War, journalistic accounts, and the qualities of places Odessa was occupied by the Romanians from such as courtyards and the Starokonnoi Market October 1941 until April 1944. Although the that residents highlight have in common an Romanian administration was less brutal than the emphasis on community, solidarity, and German administration in other Ukrainian sociability. The objectification of the places territories, it was nonetheless responsible for the

Vol. 23. No.2 Fall 2005. Page: 86 murder of approximately 200,000 Jews in became the "old horse market" when a new Transnistria (Dallin 1998; Ofer 1993). Today, livestock market was set up. Shortly thereafter, in Odessa has about one million residents, of which 1855 the city Duma decided to build a produce approximately 60 per cent are ethnic Ukrainians, market at that location. Although initially 30 per cent are Russians, and the rest comprise difficulties were encountered in attracting vendors, Bulgarians, Jews, Roma, Poles. Greeks, eventually the market developed to sell a standard Vietnamese, Chinese, Koreans, and others. range of goods. Around 1925 when the Old Bazaar on Aleksandrovskii Prospekt and Bazarnaia Street 3 For an anthropological discussion of these was burnt down, the market selling exotic animals processes in Ukraine see Wanner ( 1998). relocated to Starokonnoi for which it is still well­ 4 This "Odessa-text'' (Stanton 2003: 117) can be known today. It is known to have operated traced to early portrayals of the city as a special throughout the war as a place where second hand place, dominated by trade that seemingly sprang goods and unusual books were sold, a reputation up from nowhere in the wild steppe, populated by that continues today (Dontsova 200 I: Evdokimov people from different countries (Gubar and 2001). Herlihy 2005: 5). In the 1920s this "Odessa-text" 11 Although the militia occasionally harassed received further elaborated by a group of Odessan vendors, usually they were left alone. writers labeled the ''southwest'' or "Odessan" school of writers by Yiktor Shklovsky of which 12 The vendors usually make an agreement with Babel was part (Karakina 2004; Stanton 2003). the owner of the house they stand in front of- they seek their permission and pay a small fee each 5 http://www.migdal.ru accessed 17 April 2004. time. Albert paid one hryvnia (the unit of 6 http://www.moldovanka.od.ua/l/4.htm accessed Ukrainian currency) in 2002 (equivalent to 15 US 5 August 2004. cents). 7 There are a number of literary portrayals of 13 This is the name given to signifY the routes courtyard life one of the most thorough of which is Jews followed as the Romanian police forced them Arkadii Lvov's novel Courtyard. Lvov's novel is a out of the city to death and labor camps. fictionalized account of one courtyard during the late thirties and in the immediate post-war period. The majority of the conversations and interactions References Cited described take place in the courtyard rather than the interior living spaces. See also Aleksandrov Agnew, John C., 1988, Worlds Apart: The (2002) and Poisner (200 I) for more contemporary Market and the Theater in Anglo­ portrayals. American Thought 1550-1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 8 lliachevsk was one of two districts in which Moldovanka was located when I conducted Agnew, John, 1993. Representing Space: fieldwork. At the end of my stay a decision was Space, Scale and Culture in Social made to amalgamate Odessa's eight administrative Science. In Place/Culture/Representation. districts into four, as a result of which Moldovanka J. Duncan and D. Ley, eds. pp. 251-271. was to become a single district. London and New York: Routledge.

9 lt is possible changes occurred as a result of the Aleksandrov, Rostislav, 2002, Istorii construction of new residential districts to the "Sranshego vemeni." Odessa: Optimum. north and south of Odessa where many Odessans Boldetskaia, Olga. and Manuela Leonhardt, living in cramped quarters in the centre 1995, Bolshaia semia? Sosedskie subsequently moved. It was apparently not otnosheniia v staroi chasti goroda Odessa. uncommon to see courtyard celebrations I 0 years Unpublished manuscript. ago but now they are increasingly rare events. Briker, Boris, 1994, The Underworld of Benia 10 The Starokonnoi Market was founded in the Krik and I. Babel's Odessa Stories. 1830s as a livestock market so that cattle could be Canadian Slavonic Papers XXXVJ(l- traded more conveniently than at the New Bazaar. 2):115-134. It was originally known as the livestock market but later was called the horse market. In 1850, it

Vol. 23. No.2 Fall 2005. Page: 87 Carsten, Janet and Stephen Hugh-Jones eds., Gerasimova, Katerina, 2002, Public Privacy in About the House: Levi-Strauss and the Soviet Communal Apartment. In Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge Socialist Spaces: Sites of Everyday Life University Press. in the Eastern Bloc. D. Crowley and S. E. Reid, eds. pp. 207- 230. Oxford and New Casey, EdwardS., 1996, How to Get from York: Berg. Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time: Phenomenological Prolegomena. Gubar, Oleg and Patricia Herlihy, The In Senses of Place. S. Feld and K. H. Persuasive Power of the Odessan Myth. Basso, eds. pp. 13-52. Santa Fe NM: Unpublished Manuscript. School of American Research Press. Gubar, Oleg, Evgenii Golubovskiy, and Coleman, Simon, and Mike Crang, 2002, Rostislav Aleksandrov, 2002, Bolshe Grounded Tourists, Traveling Theory. In Odessa, chiem sama Odessa. Odessa Tourism: Between Place and I (I ):37-44. Performance. S. Coleman and M. Crang, Guthier, Steven L., 1981, Ukrainian Cities eds. pp. 1-19. New York and Oxford: During the Revolution and the Interwar Berghahn Books. Era. In Rethinking Ukrainian History. I. Cukierman, Walenty, 1980, The Odessan Myth L. Rudnitsky and J. P. Himka, eds. pp. and Idiom: Some Early Works of 158-179. Edmonton: Canadian Institute Odessan Writers. Canadian-American for Ukrainian Studies. Slavic Studies 14( I ):36-51. Harvey, David, 1993, From Space to Place and Dallin, Alexander, 1998, Odessa, 1941-1944: Back Again: Reflections on the Condition A Case Study of Soviet Territory Under ofPostmodernity. In Mapping the Foreign Rule. lasi, Oxford and Portland: Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change. Center for Romanian Studies. J. Bird, B. Curtis, P. Putnam, G. Robertson, L. Tucker, eds. pp. 3-30. Day, Sophie, Evthymios Papataxiarchis, and London and New York: Routledge. Michael Stewart, 1999, Lilies ofthe Field: Marginal People Who Live for the Herlih)', Patricia, 1986, Odessa: A History Moment. Oxford: Westview Press. 1794-1914. Cambridge MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. Dontsova, Tatiana, 200 I, Moldavanka: Zapiski kraevida. Odessa: lzdatelstvo "Druk." Herzfeld, Michael, 1991, A Place in History. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Evdokimov, Vadim, 2001, Proshloie i nastoiashchee Starokonnogo. Slovo, Humphrey, Caroline, 2005, Ideology in 23.03.2001. Infrastructure: Architecture and Soviet Imagination. Journal ofthe Royal Falen, James E., 1974, Isaac Babel: Russian Anthropological institute (II): 39-58. Master of the Short Story. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Karakina, Elena, 2000b, Guliaem po Odesse. Or Sameakh, 27 December. Feld, Steven, and Keith Basso, 1996, Senses of Place. Santa Fe NM: School of American Karakina, Elena, 2004, Po Sledam "lugo­ Research Press. Zapada." Pravoie Delo, January #6(262). Filippucci, Paola, 2002, Acting Local: Two Klier, John D., 2002, A Port, Not a Shtetl: Performances in Northern Italy. In Reflections on the Distinctiveness of Tourism: Between Place and Odessa. In Port Jews: Jewish Performance. S. Coleman and M. Crang, Communities in Cosmopolitan Maritime eds. pp. 75-91. New York and Oxford: Trading Centers, 1550-1950. D. Cesarani, Berghahn. ed. pp. 173-178. London and Portland: Frank Cass. Lefebvre, Henri, 1991, The Production of Space. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Vol. 23. No.2 Fall 2005, Page: 88 Lvov, Arkadii, 1989, The Courtyard. New Simmel, Georg, 1969, The Metropolis and York and London: Doubleday. Mental Life. In Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities. R. Sennett, ed. pp. 47- Markish, Simon, 1987, The Example of Isaac 60. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, Babel. In Isaac Babel: Modern Critical Educational Division, Meredith Views. H. Bloom, ed. pp. 171-189. New Corporation. York, New Haven and Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. Sinyavsky, Andrey, 1987, Isaac Babel. In Isaac Babel: Modern Critical Views. H. Bloom, Massey, Doreen, 1994, Place, Space and ed. pp. 87-95. New York, New Haven, Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. Merriman, John M., 1991, The Margins of City Stanton, Rebecca, 2003, Identity Crisis: The Life: Explorations on the French Urban Literary Cult and Culture of Odessa in the Frontier 1815-1851. New York and Early Twentieth Century. Symposium Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fall. Naidorf, Mark, 200 I, Odessa: Vid s severa. Stallybrass, Peter, and Allon White, 1986, The Dom Kniazia Gagarina. Sbornik statei i Politics and Poetics of Transgression. publikatsii 2:328-333. London: Methuen. Ofer, Dalia, 1993, The Holocaust in Sylvester, Roshanna P., 1996, Cultural Transnistria: A Special Case of Genocide. Transgressions, Bourgeois Fears: Violent In Holocaust in the Soviet Union: Studies Crime in Odessa's Central Entertainment and Sources on the Destruction of Jews in District. Jahrbucher fur Geschichte the Nazi Occupied Territories of the Osteuropas 44:503-522. USSR, 1941-45. L. Dobroszycki and J. S. Gurock, eds. pp. 133-153. London: ME Sylvester, Roshanna P., 200 I, City of Thieves: Sharpe. Moldavanka, Criminality, and Respectability in Prerevolutionary Paustovsky. Konstantin. 1987, I Promise You Odessa. Journal of Urban History Maupassant. In Isaac Babel: Modern 27(2):131-157. Critical Views. H. Bloom, ed. pp. 113- 121. New York. New Haven, Topchiev, Aleksander G., 1994, Odessa: Gorod Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers. - aglomeratsia- portovo-promyshlenyi kompleks. Odessa: AO Bakhva. Rojek. Chris, 1997, Indexing, Dragging and the Social Construction of Tourist Sights. In Utekhin, Ilia, 200 I, Ocherki kommunalnogo Touring Cultures: Transformations of byta. Moscow: OGI. Travel and Theory. C. Rojek and J. Urry, Utesov, Leonid, 1976, Spasibo, Sertse! eds. pp. 55-74. London and New York: Mosvka: Vserossiskoie teatralnoie Routledge. obshchestvo Web version Rubin, Rachel, 2000, Jewish Gangsters in http://www.kuzbass.ru/moshkow/lat/ME Modern Literature. Urbana and Chicago: MUARY/UTESOW/ accessed 17 April University of Illinois Press. 2004. Shields, Rob, 1991, Places on the Margin: Wanner, Catherine, 1998, Burden of Dreams: Alternative Geographies of Modernity. History and Identity in Post-Soviet London and New York: Routledge. Ukraine. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Sicher, Efraim. 1995. Jews in Russian Literature After the Revolution. Wirth, Louis, 1969, Urbanism as a Way of Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Life. In Classical Essays on the Culture of Cities. R. Sennett, ed. pp. 143-164. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Educational Division, Meredith Corporation.

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