Odesa, Ukraine

In October 2019, I had the opportunity to visit the Ukraine-based Opower engineering team in Odesa, Ukraine for a week. It was a great chance to meet the team (in person!), and explore the city.

These are a series of photos that I took of the city, mostly taken at night after work, or on the walk to-and-from the Odesa office. It's a city of incredible architecture, and brilliant uses of lights at night. The food was also amazing - delicious Georgian cuisine, pastas, pastries, chocolates, teas.

Nikon Z7 + NIKKOR 24-70mm f4, 24mm, 1/500 sec, f6.3, ISO 100

Odesa's architecture has a strong 18th century influence - many of the buildings were built in that time period, and the city was mostly unaffected by World War II, leaving many of these gorgeous, ornate buildings still standing.

There wasn't an Apple Store in Odesa, but there was a store for the iPeople.

Nikon Z7 + NIKKOR 24-70mm f4, 24mm, 1/100 sec, f6.3, ISO 100

Nikon Z7 + NIKKOR 24-70mm f4, 62mm, 1/160 sec, f6.3, ISO 100

The Odesa Opera House - a gorgeous building, it was first built in 1810, and destroyed by fire in 1873. When it was rebuilt and reopened in 1887, it was designed in a Vienna Baroque style.

Nikon Z7 + NIKKOR 24-70mm f4, 24mm, 1/160 sec, f6.3, ISO 100

The Odesa City Council Building, just down the street from the Opera House. It was originally built in 1828-1834, and rebuilt in 1871-1873. The front of the building depicts Ceres and Mercury (you can see Mercury featured on the right), representing the goddess of agriculture and the god of commerce.

Nikon Z7 + NIKKOR 24-70mm f4, 26mm, 1/30 sec, f6.3, ISO 110

Nikon Z7 + NIKKOR 24-70mm f4, 26mm, 1/250 sec, f6.3, ISO 100

A statue of Duke de Richelieu, one of Odesa's early and most famous governors in the 19th century. He was appointed governor of Odesa in 1803, and helped the city grow to the population during his tenure. The statue was completed in 1826.

Nikon Z7 + NIKKOR 24-70mm f4, 26mm, 1/125 sec, f6.3, ISO 100

A look down the Potemkin Steps, made famous by the 1925 film Battleship Potemkin. Odesa is a major economic hub into the Black Sea, and you can see shipping crates and cranes in the distance. The statue of Duke de Richelieu stands at the top of these steps. The steps were constructed from 1837-1841 as a gift from Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov as a gift to his wife.

The Odesa office was walking distance to the waterfront, so we were able to have walking meetings along the water.

Nikon Z7 + NIKKOR 24-70mm f4, 24, 1/25 sec, f4, ISO 560

Nikon Z7 + Sigma Art 35mm f1.4, 1/40 sec, f1.4, ISO 720

On the left is an outdoor market and shopping area that was between my hotel and the Odesa office. You could buy coffee, snacks, and the latest PlayStation 4 games here.

On the right is an alley I never explored, but Bernardazzi is apparently a very nice, very expensive, restaurant.

Nikon Z7 + Sigma Art 35mm f1.4, 1/40 sec, f1.4, ISO 1400

The Opera House at night - lit up. A fountain was running, with the lights changing and shifting colors. Someone was selling light-up toys, which caught the attention of a kid walking by. The Opera House was surrounded by statues of angels and animals.

That's what stood out to me when I'd explore the city at night - how much was devoted towards color, lights, shining bright.

Nikon Z7 + Sigma Art 35mm f1.4, 1/40 sec, f2.5, ISO 1250

There was a main cobble street market, closed to cars, that had a variety of stores to window shop. The trees were lit up every night.

Nikon Z7 + Sigma Art 35mm f1.4, 1/40 sec, f2.5, ISO 640

In one of the shopping districts, there were see-saws that had colored lights that would bounce back and forth. I tried one myself - the see-saws were extremely heavy, and extremely over-engineered, but also extremely cool.

There was an electronics store that was selling a ton of cameras, hoverboards, tablets, smartphones.

Nikon Z7 + Sigma Art 35mm f1.4, 1/40 sec, f2.5, ISO 640

Someone painted their balcony with sunflowers (the national flower of Ukraine) and wrote "Glory to Ukraine!" above.

A coffee shop/bakery that was a block from my hotel. I'd swing by every evening on the walk back from the office to grab a pastry. By the second or third day, the employees could understand my (extremely, extremely) limited language skills to get a snack. Their pastries were so good.

Nikon Z7 + Sigma Art 35mm f1.4, 1/40 sec, f2.5, ISO 640

Nikon Z7 + NIKKOR 24-70mm f4, 30mm, 1/100 sec, f5, ISO 100

Back at the harbor, there were a few people practicing archery.

Nikon Z7 + NIKKOR 24-70mm f4, 24mm, 1/50 sec, f4, ISO 100

An anchor, the symbol of Odesa.

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