Podcast #5: Odessa and Ukraine

This week, Alexander Woolley joins me to discuss Ukraine, and in particular the historic Black Sea port of Odessa.

We cover various topics, including:

• Is it ‘Ukraine’ or ‘The Ukraine’ and the whole ‘correcting people on how they pronounce a country’ thing.
• On being squashed between other countries (see also: Poland)
• The wonderful city of Odessa
• The Potemkin stairs (or are they steps?)
• Going to the opera / theatre (including tips)
• Speaking the language – or not (and indeed which one?)
• Ukrainian food and restaurants
• Sleeper train travel in Ukraine

Listen / Watch

You can listen on Stitcher … iTunes … Spotify … Pocket Casts … PodBean … and others.

Or right here on the page:

Show Notes:

Sergei Eistenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.

Michael Douglas just wants some breakfast (the bit with the food / photo comparison is near the end of the clip).

The out of office road sign in welsh.

Note that in this podcast I talk about the area in front of Lviv train station being a mess. Since recording this, I’ve passed through Lviv once again, and they were in the process of completely redeveloping it.

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