In the streets of a packed and partying Odesa, a freewheeling port and beach city on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, the thrum of diesel generators is a noisy reminder to holidaymakers that their chosen destination is a frequent enemy target in a country at war.
Blackouts hit the badly damaged and overloaded power grid every day, giving locals and visitors even more reason to stroll Odesa’s tree-lined avenues and waterfront promenades, rather than waiting indoors during a summer heatwave for the lights and air conditioning to click back on.
The generators that burble for hours each day outside practically every shop, cafe, bar, restaurant and hotel in the city increase costs for hard-pressed proprietors, but they are indispensable to businesses that must maximise high-season income just to survive.
Ukraine’s beleaguered holiday industry was still to recover from the Covid pandemic when Russia launched its all-out invasion in 2022, and hopes for a partial recovery on the coast last summer were scuttled by the destruction of the Russian-occupied Kakhovka dam, which swept wreckage, oil and landmines down the Dnipro river into the Black Sea.
That disaster forced the official closure of Odesa’s beaches for much of the season, but a year later many of them are now open, visitor numbers are up, and Ukrainians who have reluctantly grown accustomed to war are adamant that summer must go on.
“In 2022 my wife and two children went to western Ukraine to be safer, and spent that summer over there with relatives,” says Serhiy, a computer programmer from the eastern city of Dnipro, which is often hit by Russian missiles and drones.
“A year ago we planned a beach holiday in Odesa all together, and then the dam was blown up and we heard stories about mines and the bodies of people and animals ending up in the sea, so we cancelled that,” he adds.
“We decided then that, barring some other disaster, we would definitely come here this summer. I’m glad we did because the children are loving it – they’ve been to the dolphinarium and a fairground and they’re in the sea all the time.”
[ Daniel McLaughlin: Odesa feels aftermath of dam explosionOpens in new window ]
Serhiy and his family occupied a precious patch of sand on Lanzheron beach, one of the closest swimming spots to central Odesa, where hundreds of people lay on towels and under blue and red umbrellas and cooled off in the shallows.
Few ventured further out, amid continuing concerns over mines and pollution and after officials did not insist this year on the presence of underwater nets to catch floating threats, after resort owners complained that they were expensive and ineffective.
“Every decision now in Ukraine is a balance between what you want to do and whether it is too risky,” says Natalya, Serhiy’s wife, who was born on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea that Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
“We have a lot of attacks on Dnipro, the air-raid siren sounds at some point every day and every night. You never know if the next bomb will hit your apartment block or office or the children’s school,” she adds. “So we decided that coming here was worth the risk – Odesa is always lively, we have the sea and we really, really needed a break.”
Tourism officials say occupancy rates are up this year in Odesa, which is now the only major seaside resort area that is accessible to Ukrainians after Russia seized Crimea, occupied the coastal Mariupol and Berdyansk areas and much of Kherson region, and made Kyiv-controlled Mykolaiv province, just to the east of Odesa, too dangerous for holidays.
Many women and children still go abroad for breaks, travelling overland because Ukraine’s airports are closed, but most men are barred from leaving the country under martial law, making Odesa a prime destination for family holidays.
Odesites are proud of their anything-goes attitude and disdain for authority, but they have adapted to wartime rules: bars and clubs now close before a midnight curfew, and owners of beach facilities say they have met official demands to ensure bomb shelters are available and the water is regularly checked for potential hazards.
“Remember that people are not allowed in the water during an air-raid alert, when suspicious objects are detected, during storms ... and at night,” travel expert Oleksiy Voytsekhovskyi told the RBK-Ukraina news outlet.
Russian missile and drone strikes on Odesa and the surrounding area in April and May – including a deadly cluster bomb attack on a seaside promenade that was captured on CCTV cameras – put safety at the forefront of holiday plans for many people, he added.
Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region’s military administration, said he hoped 20 beaches would welcome bathers over the summer as safety checks are completed.
“People can’t be held back,” he says of Ukrainians’ desire for summer sun and sea.
“They want to rest, to feel better. Our natural vitamin – our sun – our Black Sea, our beaches, can’t be replaced today by any cocktail of vitamins that we could offer. That’s why we’re trying to open as many beaches as possible.”
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