Odesa’s mayor, Gennadiy Trukhanov, wants the world to know that “Odesa has never been and will never be a Russian city. Odesa is a Ukrainian city that was built by Europeans. Many had a certain loyalty — yes. But being loyal and identifying yourself as a resident of a Russian city is two big differences.”
Russian Empress Catherine the Great founded Odesa in the late 1700s as a gateway to Europe. The city quickly grew into a cosmopolitan powerhouse, nicknamed the “Pearl of the Black Sea.” In 1887, half of the population was Russian, 30% was Jewish, and only 9% was Ukrainian. However, the Ukrainian population quickly grew, and by 1939, Russians, Ukrainians, and Jews each accounted for one-third of the city’s inhabitants. The Second World War decimated the Jewish community, but Ukrainians flourished: A study estimated that in 2015, Odesa was 68% Ukrainian and 25% Russian. Almost all Odesans speak Russian, but since 2015, the percentage speaking some Ukrainian at home has ballooned from 6% to 29%.
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This year, after being bombed and sheltering terrified refugees from other Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine, Odesans realized there could be no brotherhood with Moscow. Antipathy surged. In May, Odesans even launched an official petition to replace a statue of Catherine the Great with a statue of … gay pornography actor Billy Herrington. The petition received over 25,000 signatures, legally obligating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to respond (it ultimately failed).
Pro-Russian Ukrainians’ U-turn is reflected in national opinion polls that show massive jumps in pro-Ukrainian sentiment in 2014 and 2022. Trukhanov said, “Since February 24, there has been no trace of this Russian loyalty. In our country, even small children know: Putin is an enemy, evil in the flesh. If cockroaches came to your kitchen, this does not mean that the kitchen belongs to them, even if they held a referendum. Cockroaches must be expelled and made to never return.”
Trukhanov’s political background is murky. He was a representative of the pro-Russian Party of Regions from 2012 until 2014, when the Maidan Revolution ousted the party from power. Weeks after Maidan, Trukhanov was elected as Odesa’s mayor. He was accused of holding a Russian passport, which he vehemently denied. However, in 2018, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reported that a copy of Trukhanov’s Russian passport, valid from 2003 to 2008, had been discovered in the Panama Papers leak. When Trukhanov faced corruption-related charges in November 2021, his $1.1 million bail was paid for by pro-Russian lawmaker and oligarch Vadym Novynskyi. Trukhanov continues to deny that he was ever pro-Russian — one of his staffers alleged that the mayor was the victim of a media smear campaign led by a hostile oligarch. Regardless, Trukhanov has little warmth for Putin these days.
The mayor is focused on grain exports and repelling missiles and kamikaze drones. Odesa’s port had been blockaded for several months earlier this year until Ukraine and Russia signed agreements with Turkey that allowed for carefully supervised shipments. Still, Putin continues to harass the city with kamikaze drones, almost all of which have been shot down so far. Trukhanov’s desire for more air defense capabilities is thus understandable.
What of the future?
Trukhanov is eagerly lobbying for Odesa’s historical downtown to be designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Should the city avoid being destroyed like Mariupol, a port city that fell to Putin this spring, then it will undoubtedly shine again — free, open, and undoubtedly Ukrainian.
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Adam Zivo is a Canadian columnist and policy analyst who relocated to Ukraine earlier this year to report on the Russia-Ukraine war. He is writing a book on how the war is experienced by average Ukrainians.
