Odessa, Ukraine before the war

[ladislav]

It's a bit long, but worth watching.

I was there in 2021 and there were no Americans there even then.

[globalwonder]

Did you experience romance?

[Voyager1]

I was in Odessa before the war and almost all scammers there. The good part about it is you could get nice hotels and apartments for cheap so if you had an existing girlfriend (from somewhere else) you could bring her there. It was a nice place to live

[Voyager1]

There was one restaurant / bar (I forget the name) and the girl would take you there and ring up expensive drinks. If you didn't pay the bill the bouncers would beat you up in the bathroom. This almost happened to me but I googled the restaurant and it said scam restaurant.



The police are in on it

[ladislav]

Most girls in that city suck. They scam locals and foreigners. Spoiled like hell by all the Middle Eastern types and Georgians, Armenians, etc.
They are worse than American girls character wise, except that they are totally drop dead gorgeous.
You need to get one from surrounding villages/small towns or ones who just came recently. Which applies anywhere in UA.
Odessa is basically like a city state of its own. Kind of like Singapore before it became independent. They speak their own dialect with a weird accent and have own culture which is very different from Ukraine and Russia. Basically, a different nationality.
There were many people who wanted to make it like Singapore. The problem is it's so corrupt with so many greedy officials and criminal groupings that it would not survive as a separate country.
Nobody in Ukraine likes people from Odessa.
The Jewish population of Ukraine mostly left and became known as " The Russians" abroad. Which drives Russians in Russia insane since these do not look or talk like Russians.
But that is another story.
Otherwise, it is a gorgeous place with incredible architecture, music, views and food.