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"Have you ever been in love with a place? There are surely many other places, more beautiful, more famous or more attractive, but you always come back to this one place that you love for no apparent reasons. Why? Maybe because it's about fascination and love, and, as far as I am concerned, love has no need for any kind of reasons... In my case this place is a city whose name has a feminine resonance: Odessa!
In time I learned there were more cities by the name of Odessa! Only in the United States there are more than 10 cities with this name, in Texas, Florida or Nebraska. There is also a lake in the US by this name, in Michigan. And there's also Little Odessa, a famous neighborhood in Brighton Beach, New York. Do you think that's all? Well, there are still two more cities named Odessa across the Atlantic Ocean: the first is up North, in Canada, and the second is down South, in Brazil! And to further complicate things, even in Ukraine there is a second Odessa, called New Odessa! But there is only one true legendary Odessa, the original Odessa, the emblematic city from the Black Sea coast, the mother of them all, the so called Mama Odessa, a term used with great love and affection by the residents of the city!
Often, many of the big cities of our world have different names under which they are known to other peoples. For instance, my home-city is Bucuresti, the capital city of Romania, which in English is called Bucharest. As for Odessa, the Russians spell the name of this city with two "s," while the Ukrainians use only one "s” - Odesa! Nowadays, in the light of the latest disputes between them, it seems that only one single letter "s" makes the difference between the Russians and the Ukrainians!
The name of the city tends to be spelled with two "s" in English, too, hence I chose to write “Odessa,” with two “s,” for a better and proper pronunciation for my English language readers, although I usually write it with one “s.” For the same purpose, I also performed a few changes in the spelling of certain specific names.
With two "s" or just one "s," I now find it crystal clear that without my friends from Odessa – Russians, Ukrainians or Romanians alike: Igor Yurchuk, Ramila Ancharova, Elena Andreeva, or George Safta - I could have never written this book, because they were the ones who revealed to me the beauty and the uniqueness of this iconic and legendary metropolis from the Black Sea shore!
What followed was like love at first sight. I later came back time and again, whenever I could, and each time I found new places, new friends, new stories. When the war broke in Ukraine I was heartbroken, fearing for the city and the lives of my friends and getting frustrated at the ever growing possibility that I could never go there again. Fortunately, things have long begun to calm down, and Odessa goes on, serene, beautiful and as attractive as ever!"
