Odessa: cultural architecture protected

00Venice’s Teatro San Cassiano became the world's first public opera house in 1637. Soon, in the C17th & C18th, Central European opera houses had to be financed by rulers, nobles and wealthy people who used patronage of the arts for their own grand reputation. So the Russian Opera House in Odessa must have been a wonderful sight in Russia. Officially it was said to be at the intersection of history because it’s between Tchaikovsky Lane and Langeron St, while facing Richelieu St and de Ribas St. Each personality contributed to Odessa’s development. The first opera house, which opened in 1810, burned down in 1873 and reopened in 1887, was in Vienna Baroque style, an immediate city landmark. Performances included opera, ballet and concerts.

Opera House front

Opera House, National Academic Theatre

The National Academic Opera-Ballet Theatre was built in 1884-7 by Viennese architects Ferdinand Fellner & Hermann Helmer. The grand Viennese Baroque style was the first one built in Novorossiysk Port on the Black Sea where electric lighting and central heating were used.

What famous people were associated with the Odessa’s Opera House area? Count Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langeron (1763-1831) was born into a noble Parisian family. He was one of many French émigrés in Russian service, having his first war experience in the America’s War of Independence. He then served at Caracas and Saint Domingo in 1782-3, before being promoted in the French army to Colonel of the Armagnac Regiment in 1788. Langeron joined the Russian Army besieging the Ottoman Fortress of Izmail in 1790. He was awarded a Golden Sword for Courage, and he remained in the Russ-ian service for life. 

Armand du Plessis, 5th Duke of Richelieu (1766-1822) was born in Paris, a royalist who enlisted in the Kingdom of France’s army after the start of the French Revolution (1789). de Richelieu entered the Queen Marie Antoinette's Regiment of Dragoons in the storming of the Versailles Palace (1789). He became an officer of the Russian Imperial Army, and a Duke upon the death of his father in 1791.  He had a deep knowledge of economics and diplomacy, and promoted the role of trade for the nation's wel-fare. Under his regime, the discount bank, exchange, insurance company, customs district, commercial court & quarantine facility proudly grew. [The Duc's father had been a representative of the Kingdom of Spain to the Kingdom of Naples until 1816 and then an officer in the Russian Imperial Army 1772].

This may have helped him get appointed Governor of Odessa (1803-14). In Richelieu's governorship, he received royal permission to establish locally funded educational institutions in Odessa. de Richelieu's greatest claim to fame was establishing the  Richelieu Lyceum in Odessa in 1817, located on the corner of modern Langeron and de Ribas Sts.  Richelieu was supported by the newly created Ministry of Education (1802) and the National Educational Statutes (1803). In 1804 2 educational institutions were founded as Richelieu Lyceum in 1817, was a private institution of learning where the students were drawn primarily from the aristocracy and wealthy merchant families. Richelieu Lyceum became an institution of higher education and basis for today’s Odessa National Uni. 

French was the only academic language until 1820, when Russian lecturers joined the Lyceum and taught in Russian. Duc de Richelieu was the Governor of Odessa (1803-14), dying from cholera in 1831, and buried in Odessa’s Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin. 

He returned to France as a peer in the Bourbon Restoration (1814-30). Odessa became part of Ukraine in 1920 when the Red Army integrated it into the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. And the Odessa Opera House was encircled by historically significant sites. The Auditorium was decorated in the playful late French Rococo. The ceiling, painted by Franz Leffler & restored by Mikhail Zandin after 1925 fire, was divided into 4 segments: medallions from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Winter's Tale and Twelfth Night. In the centre the large chandelier was beautiful.

The Opera House in Odessa endorsed their political, educational and cultural ambition, and social position. Walk down Richelieu St and see the gorgeous front view of The Opera House, then de Ribas St and Tchaikovsky Lane, and the façade faces Langeron St. José de Ribas was Governor of Odessa (1794-7), José de Ribas (1749-1800), Louis de Langeron (1763-1831) and Duc de Richelieu (1766-1822) were political leaders of late C18th and early C19th.

Holy Assumption Cathedral

The area surrounding the Odessa Opera and Ballet Theatre is rich in cultural institutions, protected by UNESCO. National Scientific Library (1829) in Pasteur St was the first public library in Ukraine. Its opening marked the beginning of the foundation of public libraries in all cities of Russian Empire. Today it is the leading socio-cultural centre in Ukraine and the research, methodological and coord-ination centre on library science, bibliography and document management. And see Odessa Literary Museum, Odessa Philharmonic and Musical Comedy Theatre. 

The area also features other cultural heritage sites, although some were recently attacked. Holy Assumption Cathedral in Odessa, founded in 1855 is one of the largest churches in southern Ukraine. From 1936 on it was the cathedral church of the Odessa diocese. It was consecrated by the ​​Archbishop of Kherson and Odessa. The 2-storey church was built at the expense of the merchants Jacob and Nikolai Cherepen-nikovs according to the project of the architect L. Otton. The height of the temple together with the bell tower is 56 m and the capacity is 5-6 thousand parishioners.

The temple consists of two sections: upper and lower, with three altars in each. The lower church was consecrated in the name of St. Nicholas, its southern chapel in the name of three Saints: St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian and St. John Chrysostom.

Odessa National Research Library was the second public library in Russian Empire, founded in1829. Five millions books, periodicals, documents. This museum of old books is an architectural monument in its own right.

National Research Library

Medical University Library

Archaeology Museum

The stage door to the Opera House in Odessa is on Tchaikovsky Lane. The service entrance is at the back of the opera house. Pyotr Tchaikovsky was born into a Russian noble family (1840-93) composed first symphonic piece, an overture for Aleksandr Ostrovsky’s (1823-1886) drama, The Storm, which many critics considered to be his best symphony (1877-8) premiere of final opera Iolanthe (1892) visited and performed as conductor of his works in Odessa (1893). He died in St Petersburg.

Half of my family lived next to Odessa, but I promise I will never claim these cultural treasures for my family :)

All-Time Favourite Films: 12 angry men

Members of  #30plus MIRC channel were asked for their all-time favourite films and to submit a list of 10, in order of enjoyment. Thanks to the 31 people who spent many hours jotting notes, the process provoked amazing discussions on line, and around peoples' kitchen tables. The final list shows films that were mentioned over & over again, with the most frequently nominated films showing an asterisk.

This list does not seem to hang together cohesively. As some resp­ond­ents noted, there might have been a gender thing going on and perhaps an age thing as well. Since many of the respondents were North American, the preference for Hollywood might well have been a factor.

In the end people could use the list as a reference (both positive and negative) for their own film selections, and perhaps for some analysis as well.

Theatrical release poster, by William Rose, 1941

wiki

*2001 A Space Odyssey
12 Angry Men (my favourite)
Amadeus
American Graffiti
African Queen
Angel Heart
Bull Durham
Casablanca
Citizen Kane
Chronicles Of Riddick
Dr Zhivago
Field of Dreams
Full Metal Jacket
*Gone With the Wind
Goodfellas
Good Will Hunting
Good, The Bad and the Ugly
It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World
LA Confidential
Last of the Mohicans
Lion in Winter
Lord of the Rings
*Matrix
Notebook
On Golden Pond
Pitch Black
Pulp Fiction
Saving Private Ryan
Schindler's List
Shawshank Redemption
Sixth Sense Sound of Music
*Star Wars
Steel Magnolias
*To Kill a Mockingbird
West Side Story
*Wizard of Oz

Years later I created a list of my personal favourites:
Tea With Mussolini
Ladies in Lavender
Late Bloomers
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Howard's End
Room with a View

12 Angry Men, 1957

Sidney Lumet already an experienced theatre and television director, rehearsed his cast for two weeks and then confined them in an actual jury room where virtually the entire film was shot. The claustrophobic setting combined with the combustible personalities of a dynamic cast, incl Lee J Cobb, Henry Fonda and E.G Marshall, to create a riveting drama. Although a critical success, the film performed poorly at the box office.

Although I was in high school when I saw the film, I had zero idea that jurors didn't recognise the importance of reasonable doubt and that jurors had a moral obligation to vote not guilty if was any doubt. Worse still, I didn't know that prejudices, class differences, racism and unresolved personal trauma could have slipped out, without the juror noticing it. So might viewers conclude that the jury started with false certainty and deliberated until they uncovered the certain truth. but the jury wasn’t able to establish whether or not the defendant was innocent. Rather than uncovering certainty, their deliberations uncover doubt. And I had never been out of Australia yet, so it was important for me to grasp the main message of 12 Angry Men. And that was that justice required critical thinking, open-mindedness and the strict application of reasonable doubt, free from personal bias, prejudice and rushing to judgment. But no women in the jury was beyond my grasp :(

12 Angry Men, TCM

Wilfred Owen: Britain's key WW1 poet

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) was born in Nth Shropshire, learning at Shrewsbury Technical School. He went to Birkenhead Institute Liverpool & Shrewsbury Technical College, then worked as a pupil-teacher in a poor rural parish. So he had to start teaching in Bordeaux to earn money, just as war broke out in mid-1914.

He enlisted in the British Army in 1915 and by Jan 1916 he saw active service in the trenches on the Western Front. Owen wrote poetry during this time, and his work was heavily influenced by his war experiences and the suffering he witnessed. His poetry was known for its stark realism, emotional  intensity and condemnation of war horrors. See, for example, Anthem for Doomed Youth,  1917.

Lt. Owen on cover of The Poems of Wilfred Owen

Penguin

While fighting in St Quentin on the Somme in Apr 1917, Wilfred suffered serious concussion and trench fever. A doctor diagnosed shellshock i.e the physical and/or psychological damage suffered by combat soldiers. Owen went to a French hospital and later returned home, where he was admitted into Craiglockhart War Hospital for Neurasthenic Officers in Edinburgh and recovered slowly. Owen’s time at Craiglockhart, a famous hospital treating victims of shellshock, coincided with that of his great friend and fellow poet, Siegfried Sassoon. Sassoon read his poetry, suggested ways to enhance it, becoming a major influence on Owen's work.

After their treatment, both men returned to active service in France, where Owen led his platoon through an artillery barrage to the German trenches; he discovered when they arrived that the enemy had withdrawn. Severely disoriented by the bombardment, Owen avoided being hit by an exploding shell but returned to base camp confused and speechless.

In France Lieut Owen won the Military Cross. But only Sassoon survived the war. Owen almost survived, but in Nov 1918, he was shot dead by a German machine-gun during an unsuccessful British attempt to German-held bridge Sambre Canal, near Ors village. This was a week before the Armistice was declared to end WWI and the Western Front was liberated but Winfred’s mother did not receive a telegraph re her son’s death until the war ended. He'd never married nor had children.

This English soldier was seen as one of the key literary figures of WWI, his most famous poems including Anthem for Doomed Youth and Strange Meeting.

Funerals for British soldiers were held along the Western Front in the war

BBC

His work was published after being killed in action in France Nov 1918, 1 week before the Armistice that ended the war. Today Owen's poetry is widely studied, admired for its powerful and moving depiction of war's realities, and he's remembered as a key voice in WW1 literature. His poetry owes its beauty to an ingrained sense of compassion coupled with grim realism.

WWI devastated the world, and that shift was reflected in literature, novels and poetry. Now celebrated as one of the greatest English C20th poets, Owen’s war poems were later popularised when Benjamin Britten included 9 of them in his War Requiem, dedicated to 4 mates who’d been killed in WW2. Anthem for Doomed Youth was a memorial to those who died in the Great War AND a classic representation of the tragic waste of war.

There are MANY memorials in Owen’s honour including a memorial window in Birkenhead Central Library by David Hillhouse, unveiled in 1995 by Peter Owen. Wilfred headstone in the British corner of Ors Communal Cemetery France. Napier University Edinburgh’s collection of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon’s works. A plaque at St Julian Church Shrewsbury. And Poets Corner for Great War poets in Westminster Abbey.

** Why come back to Wilfred Owen now? Long Lost Family is a great tv programme, this week focusing on teenage sweethearts who’d finally been reunited with their daughter 46 years after they were lost to adoption. Biological mother Inge was just 17 when she became pregnant by her boyfriend Jeremy Owen in 1968, when they were living in British colonial settlements in Africa. When Inge's own nasty mother discovered what had happened, she punished her pregnant teenage daughter. Jeremy, a caring educated man living in Australia, had not seen his daughter since her birth. 

Note that Jeremy was the proud nephew of celebrated WW1 poet Wilfred Owen who had never had children!

 

Wilfred's nephew Jeremy Owen, with his recently found daughter, 

Long Lost Family

Cocodile Dundee, Outback Steakhouse, shark attack cocktails

Crocodile Dundee was the second-highest-grossing film in the U.S in 1986, and stood as the highest-grossing non-U.S. film ever at the American box office. There is a strong consensus that the film relied heavily on outback stereotypes that do not represent most modern Australians, who largely live in coastal cities. Contemporary critical commentaries pointed out that the movie featured out of date social dynamics regarding gender, race, foods, drinks and clothes that many modern Australians would not have recognised. Principal photography for Crocodile Dundee began in 1985, starting with the scenes filmed at the Federal Hotel renamed the Walkabout Creek Hotel in McKinlay, Queensland

 Nonetheless it is the American home of juicy steaks, spirited drinks and Aussie hospitality.

Outback steakhouse shark attack cocktail called Aussie JAWSsie

The ocean blue has clouds of red blood. Etsy

Outback Steakhouse didn't copy Walkabout Creek Hotel, but its vibe was generated by Crocodile Dundee which featured the iconic pub. Compare the two photos below.

The first Outback Steakhouse location was opened in Mar 1988 in Tampa Florida, and now there are 660 Outback Steakhouse locations in the U.S. Despite its Down Under branding and Aussie-themed slang eg three Australian appertizers (Bloomin onion, Aussie Cheese fries, Coconut shrimp), the chain was inspired by the popularity of the film Crocodile Dundee and served American-style cuisine rather than authentic Australian food. Outback Steakhouse operates a small number of locations (c8) in Australia but only in NSW and QLD; so I have never seen any in my state, Victoria.

Outback Steakhouse, Randolf MA 

Trip Advisor

Walkabout Creek Hotel, Qld

delicious

Outback Steakhouse is touted as an Australian-themed restaurant but focuses on American-style grilled steaks, seafood, chicken and ribs; big portions at moderate prices. The menu’s famous items are the fresh seafoods, wedge salad, mashed potato and cocktails - the Wallaby Darned is a signature, frosty frozen peach cocktail. The Outback Steakhouses targets itself between casual dining and classic steakhouses, hearty food without fine-dining prices.

Shark Week has been an annual week-long summer programme at the Discovery Channel focusing on shark-themed programming since 1988. Originally devoted to conservation efforts and correcting fallacies about sharks, Shark Week is marked at the Outback Steakhouse chain each year. It offers $8 drinks and 50% off appetizers for Shark Week. The shark-attack drink, named the Aussie JAWSsie is made with New Amsterdam Raspberry Vodka, Blue Curaçao, a trio of citrus juices and grenadine. Directions for making the shark-attack drink are as follows.

Step 1. Pour spiced rum, club soda, vodka, blue Curaçao and lime juice together in a pitcher.
Step 2. Gently mix with a long spoon. Pour Shark Bite cocktail into ice-filled individual glasses.
Step 3. Drizzle 1 1/4 ounces of grenadine into each glass to create a blooming effect that resembles blood in ocean water. Strain cocktail over ice in the glass. Add drops of grenadine to cocktail.
Step 4 Garnish with a blue gummy shark in each glass.

The Aussie JAWSsie: a blue tropical alcoholic cocktail crafted with New Amsterdam Raspberry Vodka, Blue Curaçao, a citrus juice blend, and topped off by squeezing red grenadine i.e shark blood from a keepsake plastic shark toy into the drink. This is the jaws-themed cocktail!

Outback also has a new mocktail - Sharky Temple: a child-friendly, alcohol-free version made with a base of Sprite and grenadine, also served with an interactive shark toy. These 2 drinks became popular to Outback Steakhouse for the 2026 summer and Shark Week promotions.

Walkabout Creek Hotel

Queensland

Mick Dundee & crocodile in Walkabout Creek Hotel.

ABC News, 1985

Has anyone ever visited a Outback Steakhouse? Did you try a shark attack cocktail?