The drone strike on Odessa carried out by the Russians on the night of March 2, 2024 was the largest in terms of the number of casualties since the beginning of the great war. As of Sunday afternoon, the bodies of 12 people were recovered from the rubble of a multi-storey building on Dobrovolsky Avenue. Among the dead were five children, all of them not even teenagers. Two babies. Timofey, Mark, Elizaveta, Sergey, Zlata…

Before this tragedy, the most terrible episode was considered to be the hit of an enemy missile in the Tiras residential complex, on the Lustdorf road. Eight civilians died there, including a three-month-old girl, her mother and grandmother.

When the arrival happened on Dobrovolsky Avenue, “Dumskaya” was just finishing its material on eliminating the consequences of Russian shelling. We think now is the time to publish it.

From the first hours of a full-scale war, Odessa became a target, first for Russian Nazi missiles, and then for their unmanned attack vehicles. It suffered, of course, not as much as Kharkov, and certainly not as much as Mariupol, Bakhmut and Avdievka, but nevertheless, the enemy caused considerable damage.

Walking along Odessa streets and boulevards, it is difficult not to notice traces of the war. Here the hotel building at the seaport is looking through the empty eye sockets of the windows – unloved by the townspeople (“Why with “onyxes”? They demolished it themselves!” – Roman Kapitonov sings tragically and ironically in one of his last songs), but the picture does not become any less eerie.

We turn from Zhvanetsky Boulevard onto Preobrazhenskaya and come across the pseudo-Gothic house of Solomos by Vikenty Prokhaska. The recently restored masterpiece is missing a roof and part of the upper floor… It’s as if they were chewed off by an unknown monster.

And also the House of Scientists, the Transfiguration Cathedral, the business center on Shevchenko Avenue, the ruins of “Fozzie”… The list goes on and on.

On the second anniversary of the great massacre, Dumskaya correspondents traveled to the most iconic (and accessible) landing sites to document their current condition and find out whether the process of restoring what was destroyed by the occupiers had begun.

The result is in the photo.

DRY STATISTICS

Odessa and the region are subject to missile and drone strikes regularly, only the intensity and targets change.

As of January 1, 2024, the enemy launched 215 strikes in the region, including 122 missile attacks (212 missiles hit the target). We were bombed twice by aircraft – this was in the first months of the big war. The ships were fired upon seven times. The Russians used drones 84 times.

The shelling killed 60 civilians, including two children.

269 ​​people, including 29 children, were injured.

The enemy damaged or destroyed the property of more than 12 thousand residents of Odessa region. 400 residential buildings and apartments were seriously damaged, over 60 were completely destroyed. 7.5 thousand apartments and houses were damaged by the blast wave.

Among the damaged buildings are 119 architectural and historical monuments, some of which are of national importance.

The enemy destroyed or damaged 39 recreation centers in the coastal zone, 72 commercial warehouses, over 130 trading pavilions (not counting those at Fozzie), and five merchant ships.

DON’T STOP!

The attacks continued in 2024 – full chronicle here .

On New Year’s Eve, suicide bombers hit a nine-story building in the village of Kotovsky and the private sector of the Suvorovsky district, killing a 15-year-old teenager.

The next raid took place on the night of January 8th.

On the night of January 17, a drone hit a Khrushchev building on Shevchenko Avenue. Not a single surviving apartment. Three people were injured.

January 24 – a fire broke out in a 16-story building due to a UAV hit, and a person was injured.

On January 25, drones hit a partially inhabited new building in the Khadzhibey district and a two-story building in Primorsky. The warehouse of a furniture factory in the industrial zone also burned down. Six people were injured.

On the night of February 8, kamikaze drones damaged a former Protestant church, which was being rebuilt into a residential building, and the building of a technological college near the bus station. Two patrol policemen were injured. The next day, another wounded man. February 10 – the port infrastructure in Odessa was damaged, an employee of the enterprise was injured. The destruction in Izmail is even worse.

February 23 – arrival at Peresyp, three civilians were killed. February 24 – a drone crashed again on Moldavanka, a man died, his two elderly neighbors subsequently died in the hospital.  

The last attack ( the material was prepared before the terrible tragedy of March 2 ) took place on the evening of February 27. In Odessa, debris from one of the suicide bombers damaged a transformer. A short circuit has occurred. No casualties.

THE MONASTERY HAS BEEN RESTORED, THE HOUSE OF SCIENTISTS IS GONE

Houses damaged by missiles and drones are gradually being restored, although not at the rate we would like. The municipality and the state are providing citizens affected by shelling with funds for new doors and windows. In total, in 2024 they plan to spend 90 million UAH to eliminate the consequences of enemy attacks.

As far as we can judge, of the significant objects that became targets for the occupiers, only a few have regained their almost pristine appearance. Let’s say, the Tiras residential complex on Lustdorfskaya, where on the eve of Easter an enemy missile hit, killing eight people, including a three-month-old child. But it’s outside. There is still a lot of work to be done inside:

“The facade, glazing, all common areas were completely restored, one elevator was repaired, another new one was bought, all communications were restored, including ventilation,” Viktor Yorzh, chairman of the condominium association, told Dumskoy. — The regional state administration has allocated funds for the restoration of the fire extinguishing system — the first part of the work has been completed. People fix their apartments themselves. Most of the residents have already returned, only the apartments on the third and fourth floors, where the epicenter of the explosion was and where people died, are empty. Some apartments are empty because people don’t have the money to renovate them.”

The buildings of the Iversky Monastery of the Moscow Patriarchate on Shkolny, where it arrived in March 2023, were completely restored. The clergy say: everything was done through donations from caring people.

The renovation of the Transfiguration Cathedral is financed in a similar way – according to the assistant rector of the church, Father Miroslav, money is allocated by private individuals, the diocese and personally by Metropolitan Agafangel, who established a personal fund. They are also expecting 500 thousand euros from  the Italian government through UNESCO.

For now, we are talking exclusively about the conservation of the cathedral – it is necessary to prevent rainwater from getting inside and further destruction. To do this, a new roof is being installed on the temple – a significant part of it has already been restored – and a drainage system.

Inside, the removal of rubble continues. The workers had already reached the very bottom, descending six meters under the altar of St. Peter (the rocket hit almost vertically, pierced the roof and ceilings, and exploded in the underground rooms).

In mid-February they made an interesting discovery. It turned out that one of the rooms of the sacristy, where various church utensils were stored, survived: during the explosion, the floor slab fell so that it served as a kind of shield, preventing this room from being destroyed. In the room – it is quite small – everything remains intact: Eucharistic sets, coverings, shrouds, many icons, including quite valuable ones. The clergy, understandably, called it a “miracle of God.”

Renovation of other monuments is not progressing as quickly. Let’s say, in the palace of Count Tolstoy (House of Scientists) it did not even begin.

“First of all, we need to figure out who is responsible for the retaining walls on the side of Military Descent, Chizhevich’s house and the school,” says the director of the institution, Svetlana Zhekova. — There are several of them, some are destroyed. Once we know this, design work can begin. There is a very complex engineering complex here, it consists of our wall, then the municipal one. Their load-bearing capacity has suffered. When the project is ready, we will move on to work on the foundation, roof, and then other restoration.

Thanks to UNESCO, it was possible to cover the windows with slabs. Unfortunately, we started quite late, at the end of autumn (sic! – Ed.), and finished only three weeks ago. With the support of the public organization Museum for Change, the Alif Foundation, which helps cities affected by hostilities, financed the closure of authentic parquet floors and marble staircases. We covered our piano, vases, fireplace – all the most valuable things – with sarcophagi. We conducted all the research, OGASA specialists helped prepare the documentation. We have sent an application to the World Monuments Fund and are waiting for their response. In addition, we prepared a memorandum of cooperation with UNESCO.

In general, our work has now completely stopped. Only the office direction works. As for scientific, educational and cultural areas, there are none. But we are doing everything possible to open at least two halls.”

ODDITIES ON PREOBRAZHENSKAYA AND FAITH IN VICTORY ON 411

No progress has been observed at Preobrazhenskaya, 4 – at the Solomos house. The mayor’s office paid individual entrepreneur Evgeniy Gevrik approximately 1.5 million UAH for dismantling emergency structures and clearing rubble. The businessman did everything before winter.

The second stage – restoration work – was sworn to be financed by the French company Leroy Merlin. The monument even had a sign with the corresponding text and a certain amount of building materials. Gevrik said in the fall that before the New Year it would be possible to make the formwork for installing a new roof. However, something went wrong, and after clearing out the rubble on Preobrazhenskaya, everything came to a standstill. However, it is possible that the French are waiting for spring. We were unable to contact the company.

Some damaged buildings will have to be demolished, despite their undoubted historical value (we are not talking about recognized monuments, but about the so-called “background buildings”). Thus, the two-story house No. 25 on Primorskaya Street, which was the victim of a large-scale July attack, has already been completely dismantled. It cost approximately 3 million UAH. Residents are compensated for damage, and the prices seem to be quite good – from 800 to 1000 dollars per square meter. True, people haven’t seen the money yet.

A similar fate awaits the ancient residential building No. 14 on Kartamyshevskaya, destroyed on December 29. Here they will already spend 6.1 million UAH on demolition. The tender was conducted according to a simplified procedure that did not involve competition. The customer explained this as an extreme necessity: after a Russian missile hit, part of the house fell on the neighboring one, which threatens the lives and health of people, so they need to be dismantled immediately.

The ruins must be cleared within two months.

The three-story house at 14 Kartamyshevskaya was built, according to local historians, in the 1890s. Style – eclecticism, neo-Renaissance. Before the revolution of 1917, it belonged to Meer Kanel and was used as a profit house.

The city council allocated another almost 7 million UAH to Stikon for the dismantling of the destroyed structures of the Luxembourg residential complex built by the same company, that is, by identifying the developer as the restoration contractor – by the way, veiled compensation not provided for by law.

The ruins of the administration building of the children’s and youth sailing school at the Black Sea Yacht Club were also completely dismantled.

The ruins of “Fozzy” on Balkovskaya continue to be cleared, the business center on Shevchenko Avenue remains torn down, just like the under-church-under-building on Balkovskaya.

“You see, property owners, unless, of course, they are apartment owners, have no motivation to invest in restoration – no one guarantees that they won’t fly again tomorrow,” market analyst Artem Nevzlinsky explained to us. — The only example of the opposite is “Riviera” in Fontanka, but there the income from renting out space is clearly such that it allows taking such a risk. Others do not have such motivation. The situation with architectural monuments is somewhat different: it is now vitally important to preserve them in order to protect them from the negative effects of precipitation and temperature changes. But either the city, or the state, or Western partners can pay for it. Apparently, this is precisely the problem – I don’t know why. I’m not at all worried about the churchmen, especially the Moscow Patriarchate: Agafangel, while he’s alive, will find the money.”

We would call the smokehouse at the 411th battery, one of the few Odessa buildings damaged by naval artillery fire, a real monument to human perseverance and faith in the Defense Forces.

It was March 21, 2022. Near the house, three shells exploded at once, presumably fired by the Russian frigate Admiral Essen. The 81-year-old owner of the building, former sailor Anatoly, suffered from the blast wave. The flying glass cut the pensioner’s stomach and arm.

For more than a year the house stood dilapidated, but today it pleases the eye with a new façade and glazing. Do you know why?

Because he is not threatened with new artillery shelling. The Ukrainian military cleared the entire northwestern part of the Black Sea of ​​the enemy, and then made bases in occupied Crimea inconvenient for him. Now, if Russian ships go out, they try to stay closer to the Caucasus coast. Agree, Anatoly, if he is still the owner of the kuren, of course, has reason to be optimistic.

Just like the rest of us.

The fact is that Ukraine will definitely win!

Authors: Nikita Goremyka and Alexander Gimanov, photo by Alexander Gimanov
DEATH TO THE RUSSIAN OCCUPANTS!

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